TIIK 


LITERARY     WOMEN 


ENGLAND. 


INCLUDING  A  BIOGRAPHICAL  EPITOME  OF  ALL  THE  MOST  EMINENT  TO 
THE  YEAR  1700  ;   AND  SKETCHES  OF  THE  POETESSES 
TO  THE  YEAR  1850  ; 


WITH 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THEIR  WORKS,  AND  CRITICAL  REMARKS, 


BY    JANE    WILLIAMS, 

AUTHOR  OF  «  ARTEGALL,'    'A  MEMOIR  OF  THE  REV.  THOMAS  PRICE,'  ETC. 


"  All  these  were  honoured  in  their  generations,  and  were 
the  glory  of  their  times." — ECCLESIASTICUS  xliv.  7. 


LONDON: 
SAUNDERS,  OTLEY,  AND  CO., 

06,  HKOOK  STRKKT.  HAN'         iRE, 

1861. 


Or  THc 

UNIVERSITY 


-an 


AND  CIIAUINd  <;i 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

Survey  of  works  already  existing  which  treat  of  kindred  subjects,  with 
reasons  for  believing  the  present  work  to  be  required  . .     Page     I 


-CHAPTER     I. 
A.D.  1500. 

The  Ancient  Britons  —  The  Ancient  Germans  —  The  Anglo-Saxons,  in- 
cluding the  Abbess  Hilda,  the  Abbess  Eadburga,  Queen  Osburga,  Ethel- 
fleda,  Lady  of  the  Mercians,  and  Queen  Editlia  —  The  Saxon  Abbess 
Hroswitha  of  Gandersheim  —  The  Anglo-Normans,  including  Queen 
Matilda  and  Queen  Adeliza  —  Ceridwen,  a  Welsh  Mytli — Mary  of 
France  — Translated  Works  of  Christina  of  Pisa  —  English  and  French 
Languages  —  Lady  Pelham  —  The  Pastons  —  Missive  Letters  —  Queen 
Elizabeth  Woodville  —  Juliana  Prioress  of  Sopewell  —  Devorguilla  Bal- 
Hol  _  Queen  Philippa  —  The  Countess  of  Ulster  —  Mary  St.  Paul, 
Countess  of  Pembroke, —  Queen  Margaret  of  Anjou 14 

CHAPTER    II. 
A.D.  1500-1550. 

Margaret  Countess  of  Eichmond  —  Remarks  on  the  Period  —  Biogmpliical 
Localities  —  Queen  Anne  Boleyn  —  The  Daughters  of  Sir  Thomas 
More  —  Margaret  Gigs  —  Anne  Askew  —  Queen  Catherine  Parr  — 
Frances  Lady  Abergavenny  31 


CHAPTER    III. 
A.D.  1550-1600. 

Remarks  on  the  Period  —  Lady  Jane  Grey  —  Mary  Countess  of  Aruudel  — 
Queen  Mary  Tudor  —  Mary  Roper  —  Mary  Countess  of  Sussex  and 
Arundel  —  The  Ladies  Anne,  Margaret,  and  Jane  Seymour  —  Lady 
Lumley  —  Queen  Mary  Stuart  —  The  four  Daughters  of  Sir  Anthony 
Cooke  —  Anne  Countess  of  Oxford  —  Margaret  Ascliam  —  Anne 
WheathiU  —  Frances  Countess  of  Sussex  47 

a  '2 


IV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

A.D.  1600-1650. 

Queen  Elizabeth  —  Elizabeth  Grymston  —  Elizabeth  Jane  Leon  —  Lady 
Elizabeth  Carew — Mary  Countess  of  Pembroke — Lady  Mary  Wroth — 
Elizabeth  Countess  of  Lincoln — Anne  Countess  of  Arundel  . .  Page  65 

CHAPTER    V. 
A.D.  1650-1675. 

Remarks  on  the  Period  —  Elizabeth  Countess  of  Kent  —  Elizabeth 
Countess  of  Bridge  water  —  Catherine  Philips  —  Lucy  Hutchinson  — 
Margaret  Duchess  of  Newcastle  —  Anne  Countess  of  Dorset,  Pem- 
broke, and  Montgomery  81 

CHAPTER    VI. 
A.D.  1675-1700. 

Introductory  Remarks  — Mary  Countess  of  .Warwick — Lady  Pakington 
—  Lady  Fanshawe  —  Anne  Killigrew  —  Anne  Wharton  —  Lucy  Mar- 
chioness of  Wharton  —  Aphara  Behn  —  Elizabeth  Walker  —  Lady 
Gethin  —  Lady  Halket  —  Retrospective  Observations  and  Remarks  on 
the  True  Purposes  of  Biography,  and  on  the  Abilities  and  Writings  of 
Women..  ..+..  ..  114 

CHAPTER    VIL 

THE  POETESSES. 
A  Dissertation  upon  Poetry— its  Nature  and  Uses . .      . .  . .      . .   134 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1700-1725. 

Lady  Clmdleigh  —  Mary  Monk  —  The  Countess  of  Winchelsea  —  Susannah 
Centlivre  —  De  la  Riviere  Manley     143 


CONTENTS.  V 

CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1725-1750. 
Jane  Brercton  —  Elizabeth  Rowe  —  Catherine  Cockburn  Page  15G 

CHAPTER    X. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1750-1800. 

Frances  Duchess  of  Somerset  —  Elizabeth  Toilet  —  Miss  Pennington  — 
Miss  Fairer  —  Anne  Viscountess  Irwin  —  Anne  Countess  Temple  — 
Anne  Williams  —  Lady  O'Neil  —  Susannah  Blamire  —  Mary  Robin- 
son   189 

CHAPTER    XI. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1800-1806. 
Caroline  Symmons  —  Elizabeth  Carter  —  Charlotte  Smith 206 

CHAPTER    XII. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1806-1810. 
Hannah  Cowley  —  Anna  Seward  —  Mary  Tighe 229 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1810-1825. 

Mrs.  Hunter  — Mrs.  Thrale  —  Jane  Taylor — Eleanor  Anne  Porden  — 
Mrs.  Barbauld  —  Lady  Anne  Barnard  265 

CHAPTER     XIV. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1825-1833. 
Ik-len-Maria  Williams  —  The  Margravine  of  Anspach 303 

CHAPTER    XV. 

TIIE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1833— SEPTEMBER. 
llunuuhMore  313 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE    XVI. 

THE  POETESSES. — A.D.  1833 — OCTOBER. 
Mary-Jane  Jewsbury Page  365 

CHAPTEE    XVII.— PARTI. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1835. 
Felicia-Dorothea  Hemans . . 389 

CHAPTEE    XVII.— PART  II. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.   1835. 
Felicia-Dorothea  Hemans 434 

CHAPTEE    XVIII. 

THE  POETESSES. — A.D.  1838— OCTOBER. 
Lsetitia  Elizabeth  Landon 495 

CHAPTEE    XIX. 

THE  POETESSES.— A.D.  1838—  NOVEMBER, 

I 
Anne  Grant <      519 

s 

CHAPTEE    XX. 

THE  POETESSES. — A.D.  1838-1850. 

Lady  Flora-Elizabeth  Hastings  —  Mary  Anne  Browne  —  Concluding  Ke- 
marks,  Comparisons,  Criticisms,  and  a  Poem  by  Mrs.  Hemans      . .   545 


(     vii     ) 


A  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  THE  ENGLISH  AUTHORESSES 
NOTICED  IN  THIS  ESSAY. 


Juliana  Prioress  of  Sopewcll 

Margaret  Countess  of  Richmond        

Queen  Anne  Boleyn     

The  Daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  More  : — 

1.  Margaret  Roper 

2.  Elizabeth  Dancy       

3.  Cecilia  Heron 

His  Niece,  Margaret  Gigs 

Anne  Askew 

Queen  Catherine  Parr 

Frances  Lady  Abergavenny        

Lady  Jane  Grey 

Mary  Countess  of  Arundel 

Queen  Mary  Tudor       

Mary  Roper 

Mary  Countess  of  Sussex  and  Arundel 

The  Ladies  Anne,  Margaret,  and  Jane  Seymour 

Lady  Lumley 

Queen  Mary  Stuart       

The  Daughters  of  Sir  Anthony  Cookc  :— 

1.  Mildred  Lady  Burleigh 

2.  Anne  Lady  Bacon 

3.  Elizabeth  Lady  Russell 

4.  Catherine  Lady  Killigrew       

Anne  Countess  of  Oxford 

Margaret  Ascham 

Anne  Wheathill 

Frances  Countess  of  Sussex         

Queen  Elizabeth  Tudor        

Elizabeth  Grymston      

Elizabeth  Jane  Leon 

Lady  Elizabeth  Carew 

Mary  Countess  of  Pembroke        

Lady  Mary  Wroth 

Elizabeth  Countess  of  Lincoln j 

Anne  Countess  of  Arandel I 

Elizabeth  Countess  of  Kent         i 

Elizabeth  Countess  of  Bridgewater   \  ,Q-  .      >.  / 
Lady  Jane  Cheync        ..        -      "      }  (Slsters)  {  ! 
Catherine  Phillips 

Lucy  Hutchinson 

Margaret  Duchess  of  Newcastle 

Anne  Countess  of  Dorset,  Pembroke,  and  Mont-) 

gomery        / 

Mary  Countess  of  Warwick 
Lady  Pakington 

Lady  Fanshawi  

Anne  Killigre\\      


Born. 

flo.  1460 
1440 
1499 

1508 


1508 
1520 


1537 
1515 

1542 

1526 
1528 
1529 
1530 


Died. 


1509 
153C. 

1544 


1570 
1546 
1548 

1554 
1557 
1558 


1587 

1589 
1600 


1603 


1631 
1620 


1590 
1625 


1651 
1663 
1669 
1664 

1673 
1675 

1678 
1679 
1680 
1685 


vm 


CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST    OF   AUTHORESSES. 


Born. 

Died. 

Anne  Wharton  
Lucy  Marchioness  of  Wharton  
Aphara  Behn  
Elizabeth  Walker  
LadyGethin  
Lady  Halket 

1623 
1676 

1622 

1685 
1716 
1689 
1690 
1697 
1699 

Lady  Clmdleigh  
Mary  Monk 

1656 

1710 
1715 

Anne  Countess  of  Winchelsea  
Susannah  Centlivre  
De  la  Kiviere  Manley  
Jane  Brereton  *** 

1680 
1685 

1720 
1723 
1724 
1740 

Elizabeth  Howe 

1674 

1737 

Catherine  Cockburn 

1679 

1749 

Frances  Duchess  of  Somerset  
Elizabeth  Toilet 

1754 
1754 

1759 

Miss  Farrer  

1760 

Anne  Countess  Temple        
Anna  Williams      
Lady  O'Neil  .  <        

1758 

1777 
1783 
1794 

Susannah  BJamire         
Mary  Kobinson      
Caroline  Symmons         
Elizabeth  Carter    
\CharlotteSmith     
^  Hannah  Cowley     
x  Anna  Seward  
Mary  Tighe     
Anne  Hunter                           

in! 

1749 
1743 
1742 
1773 
1742 

1794 

1800 
1803 
1806 
1806 
1809 
1809 
1810 
1821 

Hester  Lynch  Thrale  
Jane  Taylor  • 

1740 
1783 

1821 

1822 

Eleanor  Anne  Porden  
Anna  Lsetitia  Barbauld  

1795 
1743 
1750 

1825 
1825 
1825 

Helen  Maria  Williams  

1762 

1827 

The  Margravine  of  Anspach       
Mrs.  Greville  
Hannah  More         
Mary  Jane  Jewsbury     
Felicia  Dorothea  Hemans    
Lsetitia  Elizabeth  Landon    .  . 

1750 

1744 

1800 
1793 
1802 
1755 

1828 

1833 
1833 

1835 
1838 
1838 

1806 

1839 

Mary  Anne  Browne  

1812 

1844 

THE 

LITERARY   WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND, 


INTRODUCTION. 


"  Look  back  who  list  unto  the  former  ages, 
And  call  to  count  what  is  of  them  become." 

SPENSER'S  « Euins  of  Time.' 

"  If  there  be  no  region  of  literature,  science,  or  art,  where  female  genius 
has  not  distinctly  asserted  its  supremacy,  neither  perhaps  is  there  any, 
from  poetry  to  mathematics,  in  which  it  has  not  already  greatly  distin- 
guished itself.  This  it  has  done  against  all  sorts  of  disadvantages  and  dis- 
couragements, in  the  face  of  opinion  and  prejudice,  in  despite  of  means  and 
facilities  on  the  whole  very  inferior  to  those  which  the  other  sex  has 
enjoyed."  —  CRAIK'S  '  Pursuit  of  Knowledge  under  Difficulties,  Female 
Examples,'  pp.  13,  14. 


IT  is  a  common  thing — it  is,  indeed,  the  very  commonest 
of  all  things — that  people  should  live  and  love  those  about 
them,  should  hope  and  fear,  labour  and  strive,  sicken  and 
die.  Yet  out  of  these  ever-recurring  events,  happening  to 
all,  come  the  vast,  incalculable,  and  wonderful  diversities 
of  incident  which  set  centuries,  ages,  cycles,  lustres,  years, 
and  days  in  strange  contrast  with  each  other,  and  variously 
affect  the  same  periods  in  different  climes  and  countries. 
Among  the  innumerable  lives  ever  arising,  lapsing,  and 
expiring,  there  is  not,  there  never  has  been,  there -never 

B 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

can  be,  one  with  which  every  other  has  not  strong  ties  of 
natural  sympathy.  To  know  what  others  did,  and"  felt, 
and  thought,  and  how  they  died,  concerns  every  living 
individual,  and  more  especially  to  know  the  history  of 
those  whose  lot  in  more  than  the  general  features  of 
human  likeness  resembled  their  own.  Few  differences  are 
more  wonderful  than  those  between  the  leaves  of  the  same 
tree.  Hence,  the  writings  of  women,  apart  from  the 
specific  purport  of  those  writings,  and  besides  the  indica- 
tions of  feminine  character  which  they  often  afford  to  the 
outer  world,  possess  a  peculiar  charm  for  young  minds  of 
a  similar  cast ;  and,  the  ability  to  please  naturally  involv- 
ing the  power  to  modify  and  direct,  it  is  evident  that  the 
welfare  of  society  must  be  promoted  by  an  extended  know- 
ledge of  the  lives,  principles,  and  sentiments  of  the  most 
eminent  and  excellent  English  authoresses. 

Apart  from  the  knowledge  preserved  by  men,  the  sensible 
matrons  of  England  are  constantly  accumulating  family 
adages,  household  maxims,  and  practical  apophthegms, 
for  transmission  and  increase  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. No  observant  person  can  have  failed  to  admire 
many  instances  of  the  wealth  of  unwritten  wisdom  thus 
brought  to  bear  upon  domestic  conduct.  Much  more  valu- 
able results  may  therefore  reasonably  be  expected  from 
the  records  of  our  choicest  women's  lives  and  thoughts ; 
and  out  of  such  calm  depths  may  be  dredged  up  precious 
things,  unfaded  and  unmutilated  by  the  shallow  attrition 
of  the  world's  waves  and  shingles  in  their  rough  tidal  flow. 

Men  stand,  as  it  were,  upon  a  promontory,  commanding 
extensive  views,  and  open  to  immediate  impulses  from  all 
above,  below,  and  around  them.  Women  sit  like  genii 
of  secluded  caves,  receiving  echoes,  and  communicating 
mere  reverberations  from  the  outer  world,  but  not  without 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

tli<-ir  nun  pure  springs  and  rills,  tinkling  soft  music  and 
fraught  with  peculiar  efficacy. 

The  natural  and  inherent  differences  between  feminine 
intellects  are  likewise  very  great,  and  culture  renders  many 
of  those  differences  distinct  and  conspicuous  which  might 
have  lain  undeveloped  and  unnoticed  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances ;  thorough  cultivation  having  a  directly  oppo- 
site effect  to  that  superficial  form  of  education  which  veils 
or  neutralizes  the  distinctive  faculties. 

Dr.  Lindley  enumerates  ten  principal  forms  in  which 
the  young  leaves  of  plants  are  folded  up — "  The  appressed, 
as  in  the  misletoe ;  the  conduplicate,  as  in  the  rose ;  the 
imbricate,  as  in  the  lilac ;  the  equitant,  as  in  the  iris ; 
the  obvolute,  as  in  the  sage ;  the  plaited,  as  in  the  vine ; 
the  involute,  as  in  the  violet;  the  revolute,  as  in  the 
willow ;  the  convolute,  as  in  the  apricot ;  and  the  circinate, 
as  in  the  sun-dew."  By  far  more  numerous  and  more 
complicated,  but  equally  true,  each  to  its  specific  develop- 
ment, are  the  foldings  in  the  buds  of  human  character ;  and 
the  study  of  such  human  vernation  is  one  of  the  most 
general  interest  which  can  be  offered  to  the  attention 
of  any  reader.  It  constitutes  the  chief  attraction  of 
ably-constructed  fiction,  and  the  main  charm  of  authentic 
records. 

Biography,  yet  more  emphatically  than  history,  may  be 
defined  as  "  philosophy  teaching  by  examples ;"  and  be- 
sides those  plain  and  striking  lessons  which  it  placards  for 
all  as  human  beings,  and  for  many  as  Christians,  it  has  in 
certain  instances  an  instructive  voice  perceptible  only  to 
women  and  to  authoresses,  and  tones  still  finer  and  more 
thrilling,  subtly  penetrating  the  hearts  of  individuals  with 
applicable  truths,  which  can  effectually  be  learned  only  by 
means  of  self-drawn  inferences. 

B2 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

Within  the  limits  of  my  personal  acquaintance,  the 
want  of  such  an  epitome  as  the  present  aspires  to  be  has 
often,  in  my  hearing,  been  deplored ;  and  it  is  my  full 
conviction  that  this  want  is  felt  by  a  large  section  of  the 
public. 

This  book  owes  its  origin  to  a  sort  of  accident.  Having 
undertaken  to  write  a  Critical  and  Biographical  Essay  on 
the  subject  of  Mrs.  Hemans  and  her  poetry,  I  was  conse- 
quently led  to  institute  a  comparison  between  her  com- 
positions and  those  of  other  English  poetesses.  The  want 
of  a  compendious  work  exclusively  appropriated  to  a  summary 
view  of  our  literary  countrywomen  being  thus  forced  upon 
my  attention,  I  was  induced  to  enlarge  my  plan,  and,  in- 
stead of  illustrating  only  the  character  of  one  authoress, 
to  take  a  brief  survey  of  the  general  progress  of  female 
literature  in  England  from  the  earliest  period  to  the  year 
1700,  where  the  stream  divides  into  several  branches,  and 
thence  to  trace  the  course  of  female  poetry,  the  principal 
of  those  branches,  down  to  the  year  1850. 

As  a  portrait-painter  produces  his  own  idea  of  the 
persons  who  sit  to  him,  so  have  I  endeavoured  to  produce 
original  likenesses  of  character,  though  often  in  the  earlier 
chapters  constrained  perforce  to  piece  them  out  as  Pro- 
fessor Owen  does  the  fragments  of  extinct  species. 

Deeming  that  sort  of  literary  criticism  wlu'ch  connects 
the  written  utterances  of  individuals  with  the  every-day 
workings  of  their  hearts  to  be  essential  to  the  establish- 
ment of  those  solid  principles  which  must  form  alike  the 
basis  of  correct  taste  and  the  active  spring  of  all  that  is 
most  valuable  and  excellent  in  mental  acquirement,  I  have 
earnestly  endeavoured  throughout,  candidly,  kindly,  and 
truthfully,  to  estimate  the  lives  and  works  of  my  illus- 
trious fellow-countrywomen. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

I  have  happily  been  supplied  with  some  fresh  bio- 
graphical materials  of  great  value.  I  have  never  been 
content  to  derive  information  from  a  single  source ;  and 
whenever  I  discovered  that  the  works  of  good  writers  con- 
tained facts  or  hints  from  which  inferences  could  be  drawn 
relating  to  personal  history  or  illustrative  of  character,  I 
have  gathered  and  garnered  the  fruits  of  my  researches. 

Pleasant  as  it  is  to  rove  through  fields,  woods  and 
valleys,  by  the  sides  of  lakes  and  rivers,  on  the  sea-shore, 
and  over  hills  and  mountains,  collecting  indigenous  flowers 
from  their  various  homes,  yet  the  exhilarating  exercise 
fatigues  when  long  continued,  and  perhaps  there  are  few 
botanists  who  do  not  at  last  prefer  resorting  in  quiet  ease 
to  the  Regent's  Park,  or  to  Kew,  where  British  gardens 
scientifically  arranged  exhibit  within  a  small  area  the 
accumulated  treasures  of  the  country's  Flora.  A  similar 
state  of  feeling  prevails  concerning  books,  and  those 
readers  who  want  leisure  and  inclination  for  the  examina- 
tion of  several  hundred  scattered  volumes  may  probably 
be  glad,  while  evading  studious  toil,  to  see  an  abstract  of 
the  knowledge  they  desire  placed  before  them  in  these 
pages. 

It  is  refreshing  to  let  the  eyes  wander  sometimes  over 
the  ample  pages  of  the  old  and  only  complete  edition  of 
the  '  Biographia  Britamiica,'  revelling  in  the  profusion  and 
even  in  the  confusion  of  its  knowledge,  and  more  especi- 
ally taking  in  all  the  works  and  ways  of  the  British 
worthies,  and  gaining  leisurely  acquaintance  by  description 
with  their  very  looks.  But  the  women  admitted  into 
this  goodly  assemblage  are  few,  and  by  no  means  well 
selected  :  for  instance,  under  the  letter  "  A,"  only  Arabella 
Stuart,  Arlotta  (better  known  as  Arlette),  and  poor  Mrs. 
Ascham  in  dutiful  attendance  on  her  spouse,  are  to  be 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

met  with ;  while  "  B  "  produces  only  Joan  and  Margaret 
Beaufort,  Aphara  Behn,  and  Boadicea,  with  Lady  Bacon 
unobtrusively  waiting  on  her  husband  and  sons.  Nor  does 
the  scale  or  choice  amend  in  following  down  the  alphabet ; 
the  most  important  notices  of  female  writers  lurking  in  all 
sorts  of  improbable  corners,  carelessly  treated,  and  often 
shut  out  from  the  index  as  well  as  from  the  lettering. 
It  may  be  argued,  that,  in  compensation  of  this  obvious 
deficiency,  the  separate  memoirs  of  English  authoresses 
are  numerous.  Many  of  them,  however,  are  not  easily 
attainable,  and  a  vast  amount  of  time  and  labour  must  be 
expended  in  collecting  and  perusing  them.  It  follows 
from  this  state  of  things,  that,  excepting  the  dates  of  their 
births  and  deaths,  and  the  bare  titles  of  their  principal 
productions,  furnished  in  books  of  reference,  very  little  is 
known  of  them  by  the  public,  and  Englishwomen  generally 
are  deprived  of  the  benefit  and  satisfaction  of  forming  a 
real  acquaintance  with  their  lives  and  characters. 

The  '  Censura  Literaria '  of  Sir  Egerton  Brydges,  the 
'  Collections '  of  Nicholls,  and  similar  repositories  of  mis- 
cellaneous matter,  are  valuable  as  storehouses,  but  fatiguing 
as  places  of  frequent  resort.  Students  are  thankful  for 
them,  fashionable  ladies  and  indolent  gentlewomen  are 
not ;  while  young  persons,  eager  for  congenial  information 
and  ready  to  shape  their  yet  ductile  natures  after  the 
noblest A  models,  are  easily  repulsed  by  difficulties,  and 
cast  back  again  upon  the  callous  shows  of  outer  life  in 
conventional  usages. 

The  four  volumes  of  Granger's  *  Biographical  History  of 
England '  contain  brief  notices  of  all  the  most  famous  and 
infamous  men  and  women  of  Great  Britain,  from  the  days 
of  King  Egbert  to  the  Eevolution  of  1688,  with  a  list  of 
their  engraved  portraits;  but,  excepting  this  list,  there 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

is  no  information  concerning  our  literate  fellow-country- 
women which  may  not  be  obtained  more  satisfactorily 
from  other  sources. 

The  three  volumes  of  the  Kev.  Mark  Noble's  '  Con- 
tinuation '  of  Granger's  History  supply  some  interesting 
particulars  of  the  few  literary  women  who  died  between 
the  years  1688  and  1727. 

Warton's  '  History  of  English  Poetry '  extends  only  to 
the  early  part  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  but  it  does 
justice  to  the  few  female  writers  who  flourished  before  that 
period  in  England. 

'Chambers's  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  the 
most  complete  series  of  extracts,  with  criticisms  and  brief 
biographical  notices,  in  the  language,  includes  authoresses 
as  well  as  authors,  but  attempts  no  delineation  of  personal 
character. 

Craik's  *  Sketches  of  Learning  and  Literature  in  Eng- 
land '  notice  female  writers  in  flocks  and  groups,  without 
giving  sufficient  distinctness  even  to  the  intellectual 
character  of  individuals.  In  both  the '  Cyclopaedia'  and  the 
'  Sketches '  the  authoresses  are  doubtless  reduced  to  their 
true  relative  proportions  when  contrasted  with  authors, 
but  the  peculiarly  valuable  and  most  attractive  attributes 
of  the  female  mind  are  obscured. 

In  Park's  edition  of  Walpole's  *  Catalogue  of  Koyal  and 
Noble  British  Authors '  may  be  found,  intermixed  with 
brief  records  of  learned  and  literary  princes  and  lords, 
brief  records  also  of  learned  and  literary  princesses  and 
ladies,  from  the  reign  of  King  Henry  VII.  down  to  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century.  This  valuable  compila- 
tion contains  many  specimens  of  the  writings  of  our 
patrician  authoresses.  It  has  been  carefully  consulted  in 
the  preparation  of  the  present  work.  It  affords  much 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

information  concerning  portraits,  and  gives  many  excellent 
engravings  from  them.  We  may  affect  to  despise  pictures, 
yet  everybody  must,  on  reflection,  be  conscious  that,  next 
to  knowing  any  one  by  sight,  an  acquaintance  with  a 
portrait  forms  most  advantageously  in  the  mind  a  nucleus 
for  the  accumulation  and  retention  of  particulars  con- 
cerning the  original.  There  is  always  more  in  a  look  than 
any  words  can  describe ;  it  has  a  sort  of  photographic  and 
permanent  power  on  the  mind. 

Wilford's  '  Memorials  and  Characters,  together  with  the 
Lives  of  divers  Eminent  and  Worthy  Persons,'  includes  a 
large  proportionate  number  of  ladies  and  gentlewomen, 
but  extends  only  from  the  year  1600  to  the  year  1741. 
This  elaborate  collection,  published  by  subscription  in  the 
year  1741,  relates  solely  to  natives  of  the  British  Islands, 
and  was  intended  to  celebrate  persons  of  "bright  and 
exemplary  "  lives,  without  any  special  regard  to  literary 
attainments  or  productions.  Seventy-eight  female  names 
are  filed  on  this  bead-roll  of  fame.  Of  these  less  than  a 
dozen  belong  to  literate  or  literary  women,  and  none  are 
allowed  a  place  but  members  of  the  Church  of  England, 
with  the  solitary  exception  of  Mrs.  Kowe. 

Ballard's  '  Memoirs  of  Learned  British  Ladies,'  1  vol. 
8vo.,  1775,  with  a  Preface  dated  "Magd.  Coll.,  Oxon, 
Nov.  23,  1752,"  is  the  only  work  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted that  is  exclusively  devoted  to  literary  English- 
women. It  begins  with  Juliana,  the  anchoret  of  Norwich, 
who  wrote  prophecies  in  the  reign  of  King  Edward  III. ; 
and  proceeding  in  chronological  order,  it  ends  with  Con- 
stantia  Grierson,  who  translated  Tacitus  and  Terence,  and 
died  in  the  year  1733.  Mr.  Ballard's  work  is  an  indus- 
trious, accurate,  and  generally  impartial  compilation  of 
biographical  matter,  derived  from  the  most  authentic 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

sources,  which  he  quotes  with  scrupulous  care.  I  am 
greatly  indebted  to  it  for  valuable  assistance  in  a  part 
of  iny  task. 

Professor  Craik's  little  volume  of  '  Female  Examples,' 
in  his  *  Pursuit  of  Knowledge  under  Difficulties,'  is  an 
amusing  and  pleasant  book  for  every  reader,  and  to  young 
women  of  literary  tendencies  it  is  more  especially  valuable, 
vindicating  the  general  character  of  female  writers  while 
reproving  the  failings  incidental  to  it,  tracing  out  bright 
paths  of  usefulness,  and  inciting  to  excellence  by  the  exhi- 
bition of  attractive  examples  selected  from  among  the 
learned  women  of  various  nations. 

Having  seen  frequent  references  in  the  '  Censura  Lite- 
raria,'  and  in  other  works,  to  '  The  Feminead,  or  Female 
Genius,'  written  in  the  year  1751  by  John  Buncombe,  M.A., 
1  sought  it  out  in  Pearch's  *  Collection  of  Poems,'  vol.  iv. 
pp.  186-201 ;  supposing  that  I  should  find  in  it  either  a 
learned  collocation  of  the  world's  most  illustrious  women, 
or  at  least  of  those  born  in  Britain.  In  both  these  ex- 
pectations I  was  disappointed  ;  although  I  believe  that  the 
author  did  intend  to  immortalize  all  his  literary  country- 
women, and  deceived  himself  with  the  mistake  of  having 
done  so. 

Under  the  tAvo  first  kings  of  our  Georgian  period  it 
appears  to  have  been  generally  taken  for  granted  that 
Queen  Anne's  reign  witnessed  the  culmination  of  our 
planet's  literary  glory,  and  that  previous  to  the  Restoration 
of  King  Charles  II.  England  had  possessed  no  female 
writers.  In  conformity  with  this  erroneous  theory,  Mr. 
Buncombe's  encomiastic  list  begins  with  Orinda-Catherine 
Philips ;  includes  the  Countess  of  Winchelsea,  Mrs.  Cathe- 
rine Cockburn,  Mrs.  Rowe,  the  Duchess  of  Somerset,  the 
Viscountess  Irwin,  Mrs.  Wright,  Mrs.  Madan,  Mary  Leapor, 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

Misses  Farrer  and  Pennington,  a  Delia  (probably  Mrs. 
Chapone),  who  was  the  authoress  of  Odes  to  Peace,  Health, 
and  a  Kobin-Kedbreast ;  and  ends  with  a  Eugenia,  who  is 
eulogized  as  excelling  in  drawing  as  well  as  in  poetry. 
The  allusion  to  a  '  Search '  or  *  Inquiry '  after  happiness 
identifies  this  Eugenia  with  Elizabeth  Carter.  Mr.  Dun- 
combe  mentions  with  censure,  as  foils  to  his  heroines, 
Mrs.  Manley,  Mrs.  Centlivre,  Aphara  Behn,  and  a  trio 
named  Philips,  Pilkington,  and  Vane. 

*  The  Feminead '  does  credit  to  its  author  as  a  gentleman, 
a  scholar,  and  a  moralist,  though  not  as  a  poet.  The  versi- 
fication consists  of  rhymed  heroic  couplets,  the  sentiments 
are  blameless,  and  the  advice  which  the  poem  conveys  is 
good  though  commonplace.  Conscious  of  feebleness,  he  in- 
vokes "  every  muse "  in  his  exordium,  and,  feeling  the 
combined  aid  of  the  Nine  to  be  either  insufficient  or 
denied,  exclaims  in  desperation, — 

"  To  these  weak  strains,  oh  thou,  the  sex's  friend 
And  constant  patron,  Richardson,  attend  !  " 

No  doubt  Mr.  Richardson  did  attend  to  those  "  weak 
strains,"  and  he  probably  assisted  in  spreading  their  fame. 
As  a  record  of  many  remarkable  women,  written  with 
correctness  and  facility,  *  the  Feminead '  may  possibly  be 
remembered  in  literary  circles  when  works  of  far  higher 
ability  are  forgotten. 

During  the  last  century  several  miscellaneous  collec- 
tions of  the  lives  of  celebrated  women  have  been  published 
in  England,  apparently  without  any  other  principle  of 
selection  than  that  of  historical  and  contemporary  noto- 
riety, and  perplexing  the  ambitious  aspirations  of  youthful 
readers,  by  setting  before  them  the  dark  doings  and  daring 
ascents  of  the  Catherines  de'  Medici  and  of  Eussia,  and  the 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

discordant  careers  of  the  daughters  of  Sir  Anthony  Cooke 
and  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Many  works  appropriated  to 
historic  series  of  our  queens  and  princesses,  executed  with 
a  happy  admixture  of  antiquarian  research  and  popular 
fluency,  have  more  recently  enriched  women's  knowledge 
of  woman.  The  *  Letters  of  Royal  and  Illustrious  Ladies,' 
with  the  prefatory  notices  of  the  several  dictators  or  writers 
in  chronological  order,  have  likewise  served  to  mark  more 
particularly  the  extent  and  pace  of  feminine  progress  both 
in  penmanship  and  moral  culture  during  the  periods  when 
mental  education  in  England  was  the  exclusive  privilege  of 
the  upper  classes. 

I  am  unacquainted  with  the  existence  of  any  systematic 
work,  either  succinct  or  voluminous,  running  parallel  with 
the  course  of  English  literature  in  the  condensed  or 
arranged  lives  and  writings  of  literary  Englishwomen  from 
the  Heptarchy  to  the  year  1850.  Nor  do  I  know  of  one  in 
which  the  poetesses  of  England  have  been  compared  among 
themselves. 

While  our  country  has  thus  been  content,  throughout 
long  succeeding  centuries,  to  leave  the  names  of  her  most 
eminent  daughters  faintly  discernible  and  often  over- 
shadowed on  chance  monuments,  America  has  ostentati- 
ously marshalled  for  the  Elysian  fields  of  fame  the  batta- 
lions of  her  *  Female  Prose  Writers/  under  the  banner  of 
Mr.  Hart ;  and  her  '  Female  Poets,'  under  the  banner  of 
Mr.  Bead :  although  the  greater  number  of  those  author- 
esses were  still  alive  when  enlisted,  and  not  a  hundredth 
part  of  the  productions  of  the  two-fold  array  can  possibly 
substantiate  a  claim  to  lasting  preservation. 

Another  ponderous  American  volume,  edited  by  Mrs. 
Sarah  Josepha  Hale,  professes  not  only  to  include  all  our 
English  heroines,  but  also  to  abridge  all  the  published 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

memoirs  of  remarkable  women  of  all  lands  and  of  all  kinds, 
adding  fresh  transatlantic  conscripts  to  this  vast  Ama- 
zonian host.  The  title  of  the  book  is  '  Woman's  Kecord ; 
or,  Sketches  of  all  Distinguished  Women  from  the  Cre- 
ation to  A.D.  1854,  in  four  Eras,  with  Selections  from 
Female  Writers  of  every  Age.'  This  laborious  compilation 
shows  the  infusion  of  the  writer's  original  thought  only  in 
the  tinge  of  a  peculiar  form  of  heterodoxy.  It  is  bare, 
bald,  and  often  inaccurate,  but  it  is  of  real  value  as  a  cata- 
logue of  names  and  dates. 

I  may,  with  good  old  Fuller,  "  confess  the  subject  is  but 
dull  in  itself  to  tell  the  time  and  place  of  men's  (i.e. 
women's)  birth  and  death,  their  names,  with  the  names  and 
number  of  their  books ;  and  therefore  this  bare  skeleton  of 
time,  place,  and  person  must  be  fleshed  with  some  pleasant 
passages."  It  consists  with  the  primary  purpose  and  very 
nature  of  the  present  work,  that  these  "  pleasant  passages" 
should  be  extracted  from  the  writings  of  the  persons  of 
whom  the  biographical  notices  are  given.  This  more  than 
re-clothes  the  skeleton ;  it  restores  the  form,  reanimates  it 
with  the  breath  of  life,  and  gives  to  every  voice  its  own 
peculiar  tone  of  thought  and  feeling. 

A  uniform  reprint  of  the  best  works  of  our  English 
authoresses  might  probably  be  useful,  not  only  in  marking 
the  educational  progress  of  the  people,  and  facilitating  the 
critical  comparison  of  those  works  with  each  other,  but  also 
in  exhibiting  a  concentrated  view  of  what  has  already  been 
achieved.  Such  a  series  would  offer  strong  incentives  to 
fresh  aspirants  so  to  direct  their  labours  as  to  fill  up  ascer- 
tained deficiencies,  and  so  to  mould  their  compositions  as  to 
fit  the  mutable  requirements  of  social  life.  The  selection 
need  not  amount  to  a  sixty-fourth  portion  of  the  library 
belonging  to  Count  Leopold  Ferri,  of  Padua,  which,  con- 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

sisting  only  of  books  written  by  women,  comprised  thirty- 
two  thousand  volumes.  This  was  a  cosmopolitan  assem- 
blage. It  would  be  well  in  our  own  day  if  every  nation 
made  its  own,  for  near  relationship  and  local  associations 
enhance  sympathetic  interest,  and  united  retrospection 
gives  a  powerful  impulse  to  advancement. 

Meanwhile,  deeply  conscious  of  omissions,  which  I  have 
failed  in  procuring  materials  to  supply ;  of  shortcomings, 
which  I  do  not  possess  the  means  of  eking  out ;  and  of  that 
liability  to  error  which  peculiarly  attaches  to  a  collocation 
of  many  facts,  dates,  and  opinions,  I  can  only  declare  my 
willingness  to  profit  by  any  suggestions  which  may  be 
offered  for  the  rectification  and  improvement  of  the  Synop- 
tical Essay  which  I  now  lay  before  the  public,  trusting  that 
an  employment  which  has  soothed  and  cheered  many  hours 
of  solitary  suffering,  may  not  prove  wholly  useless. 


JANE  WILLIAMS,  Ysgafell. 


38,  Sydney  Street,  Chelsea. 
June  20,  1861. 


CHAPTEK    1. 

A.D.          -1500. 

The  Ancient  Britons  —  The  Ancient  Germans  —  The  Anglo-Saxons,  in- 
cluding the  Abbess  Hilda,  the  Abbess  Eadburga,  Queen  Osburga. 
Ethelfloda,  Lady  of  the  Mercians,  and  Queen  Editha  —  The  Saxon 
Abbess  Hroswitha  of  Gandersheim  —  The  Anglo-Normans,  including 
Queen  Matilda  and  Queen  Adeliza  —  Ceridwen,  a  Welsh  myth  —  Mary 
of  France  —  Translated  works  of  Christina  of  Pisa  —  English  and 
French  languages  —  Lady  Pelham  —  The  Daughters  of  John  of  Gaunt 
—  Lady  Husee  —  The  Fastens  —  Missive  letters  —  Queen  Elizabeth 
Woodville  —  Juliana,  Prioress  of  Sopewell  —  Devorguilla  Balliol  — 
Queen  Philippa  —  The  Countess  of  Ulster  — Mary  St.  Paul,  Countess 
of  Pembroke  —  Queen  Margaret  of  Anjou. 


"  Your  worthiness 

Remains  recorded  in  so  many  hearts, 
As  time  nor  malice  cannot  wrong  your  right 
In  the  inheritance  of  fame  you  must  possess ; 
You,  that  have  built  you  by  your  great  deserts 
Out  of  small  means  a  far  more  exquisite 
And  glorious  dwelling  for  your  honour'd  name 
Than  all  the  gold  that  leaden  minds  can  frame." — DANIEL. 


WAKTON  has  aptly  remarked  that  the  ancient  Greeks 
proved  their  high  appreciation  of  feminine  intellect  by 
representing  the  nine  Muses  as  women,  and  that,  perhaps, 
their  loftiest  conceptions  of  wisdom,  purity,  and  virtue 
were  embodied  in  the  Athenian  Minerva. 

Among  many  ancient  nations,  women  regularly  officiated 
as  priestesses:  the  oracles  of  Delphi  and  Dodona  were 
uttered  by  women,  and 

"  Often  as  the  maids  of  Greece  surround 
Apollo's  shrine  with  hymns  of  festive  sound, 
They  name  the  virgins  who  arrived  of  yore 
With  British  offerings  on  the  Delian  shore  : 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND,          15 

Loxo,  from  giant  Corineus  sprung ; 
Upis,  on  whoso  blest  lips  tho  future  hung ; 
And  Hacnerge,  with  the  golden  hair."* 

From  the  33rd,  34th,  and  35th  chapters  of  the  4th  book 
of  Herodotus,t  it  is  clear  that  other  British  priestesses, 
Argis  and  Opis,  Hyperoche  and  Laodice,  had  also  at  two 
different  periods  carried  sacred  offerings  to  Delos. 

The  devotional  tendency  of  the  feminine  mind  appears 
to  ha\e  been  acknowledged  and  honoured  among  all  the 
civilized  nations  of  antiquity.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
the  Druidical  priestesses  were  poets,  although  their  poetry 
has  passed  away  from  the  earth,  like  most  of  their  choral 
music,  with  the  faith  which  it  expressed.  Keligious  senti- 
ment cherished  by  traditionary  precepts  and  by  solitary 
contemplation,  amid  the  sublime  and  beautiful  scenery 
of  their  courts,  their  temples,  and  their  groves,  could  not 
fail  to  evoke  the  poetic  faculty  wherever  it  existed. 
Hesiod  J  alludes  to  the  poetry  of  the  Celts,  when  men- 
tioning in  his  '  Theogony '  the 

"  Gorgons,  dwelling  on  the  brink  of  night, 
Beyond  the  sounding  main,  where,  silver -voiced, 
The  Hesperian  maidens  in  their  watches  sing." 

Diodorus  Siculus  §  testifies  from  Hecateus  that  the  in- 
habitants of  Britain  "  demean  themselves  as  if  they  were 
Apollo's  priests ; "  and  repeats  the  tradition  of  Britain 
being  Latona's  birthplace.  We  are  not  expressly  in- 
formed that  Claudia  Kufina  was  a  poet,  but  we  are  told 
that  she  endeavoured  to  cultivate  the  taste  of  her  fellow- 
countrymen,  by  making  them  acquainted  with  the  verses 

t 

*  Cowper's  Translation  of  Milton's  Epistle  to  Manso. 

t  Belpe's  Translation. 

i  Elton's  Translation,  lines  330,  Ac. 

§  Booth's  Translation,  book  ii.,  chap.  ii. 


16          LITEKAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

of  a  Koman  author ;  and  this  fact  may  be  considered  to 
imply  the  existence  in  her  of  that  strong  poetic  tendency 
which  all  history  and  experience  attest  to  be  an  insepar- 
able attribute  of  the  Celtic  mind.  The  great  number  of 
female  names  perpetuated  in  those  of  ancient  churches 
and  their  respective  parishes  in  Wales  indicate  the  noble 
and  wealthy  women  who  first  founded  those  churches  to 
have  been  both  zealous  and  literate  Christians.* 

Tacitus,  describing  the  *  Manners  of  the  Germans,'  says, 
"  There  is,  in  their  opinion,  something  sacred  in  the  female 
sex,  and  even  the  power  of  foreseeing  future  events.  Their 
advice  is  therefore  always  heard;  they  are  frequently 
consulted,  and  their  responses  are  deemed  oracular.  We 
have  seen,  in  the  reign  of  Vespasian,  the  famous  Veleda 
revered  as  a  divinity  by  her  countrymen.  Before  her  time 
Aurinia  and  others  were  held  in  equal  veneration,  but  a 
veneration  founded  on  sentiment  and  superstition,  free 
from  that  servile  adulation  which  pretends  to  people 
heaven  with  human  deities."  t 

Among  the  Anglo-Saxons  women  were  much  honoured, 
and  many  of  them  were  famous  for  literary  acquirements. 

The  grandniece  of  Edwin  King  of  Northumbria,  Hilda 
the  Abbess,  was  in  many  respects  a  very  remarkable 
woman.  She  was  one  of  the  converts  of  St.  Paulinus,  and 
took  the  veil  at  the  age  of  thirty-three.  Having  distin- 
guished herself  by  her  admirable  management  of  the 
monastery  of  Hartlepool,  she  proceeded  to  build  the 
monastery  of  Whitby,  in  the  North  Biding  of  Yorkshire, 
and  to  regulate  its  discipline  upon  the  same  plan.  Bede 
relates  that  "  Her  prudence  was  so  great,  that  not  only  in- 

*  See  Kees's  '  Welsh  Saints.' 

t  Murphy's  '  Tacitus,'  Valpy's  ed.,  vol.  v.,  pp.  90-91. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          17 

different  persons,  but  even  kings  and  princes,  as  occasions 
offered,  asked  and  received  her  advice.  She  obliged  those 
who  were  under  her  to  attend  so  much  to  reading  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  to  exercise  themselves  so  much  in 
works  of  justice,  that  many  might  there  be  found  fit  for 
ecclesiastical  duties,  and  to  serve  at  the  altar."  *  The 
venerable  monk  proceeds  to  enumerate  five  bishops  of 
singular  merit  trained  at  Whitby.  Hilda  was  also  the 
patroness  of  Caedmon,  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  who,  at  her  instance,  set  about  transferring  into 
verse  the  whole  course  of  sacred  history.  After  seven 
years'  illness,  borne  with  exemplary  fortitude,  she  died  in 
the  year  680,  at  the  age  of  sixty-six. 

Mr.  Wright,  in  his  'Biographia  Britannica  Literaria,' 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  and  in  the  3rd  section  of  his 
Introduction,  treating  of  "  the  Anglo-Latin  writers,"  says, 
"  The  cultivation  of  letters  was  in  that  age  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  robuster  sex ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  ladies  applied 
themselves  to  study  with  equal  zeal,  and  almost  equal 
success.  It  was  for  their  reading  chiefly  that  Adhelm 
wrote  his  book  '  De  Laude  Virginitatis.'  The  female  cor- 
respondents of  Boniface  wrote  in  Latin  with  as  much  ease 
as  the  ladies  of  the  present  day  write  in  French,  and  their 
letters  often  show  much  elegant  and  courtly  feeling. 
They  sometimes  also  sent  him  specimens  of  their  skill  in 
writing  Latin  verse.  The  Abbess  Eadburga  was  one  of 
Boniface's  most  constant  friends ;  she  seems  to  have  fre- 
quently sent  him  books  written  by  herself,  or  by  her 
scholars,  for  the  instruction  of  his  German  converts ;  and 
on  one  occasion  he  accompanies  his  letter  to  her  with  a 
present  of  a  silver  pen  (unum  graphium  argentum). 

*  Bonn's  edition  of  Giles's  Translation  of  the  '  Ecclesiastical  History,' 
p.  218. 

C 


18  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

Leobgitha,  one  of  her  pupils,  concludes  a  letter  to  Boni- 
face by  offering  him  a  specimen  of  her  acquirements  in 
Latin  metres.  '  These  underwritten  verses/  she  says,  '  I 
have  endeavoured  to  compose  according  to  the  rules 
derived  from  the  poets,  not  in  a  spirit  of  presumption,  but 
with  the  desire  of  exciting  the  powers  of  my  slender 
talents,  and  the  hope  of  thy  assistance  therein.  This  art 
I  have  learned  from  Eadburga,  who  is  ever  occupied  in 
studying  the  Divine  law.'  "  * 

.Boniface  himself  paid  an  indirect  compliment  to  the 
caligraphy  of  Eadburga  and  her  nuns,  by  requesting  that 
abbess  "  to  cause  a  copy  of  the  Gospels  to  be  written  mag- 
nificently in  letters  of  gold,  and  sent  to  him  in  Germany, 
that  his  converts  there  might  be  impressed  with  a  proper 
reverence  for  the  sacred  writings." 

This  Eadburga,  otherwise  called  by  the  less  harmonious 
name  of  Bugga,  was  an  Anglo-Saxon  princess,  who  appears 
to  have  been  long  a  resident  at  Kome.  She  was  honoured 
by  the  particular  friendship  of  Archbishop  Boniface,  her 
fellow-countryman,  known  in  early  life  by  the  name  of 
Winfred,  and  by  subsequent  generations  as  "  the  Apostle 
of  the  Germans."  t 

The  '  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,'  J  under  the  date  A.D.  694, 
records,  that  on  the  accession  of  Withred  to  the  sovereignty 
of  Kent  he  assembled  a  great  council  at  Beckenham,  for 
the  express  purpose  of  consulting  upon  the  best  means 
of  promoting  the  interests  of  Christianity  throughout  his 
dominions;  and  that  the  council  was  attended  not  only 
by  Berthwald  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  by  Tobias 

*  See  Wright's  '  Biographia  Britannica  Literaria.' 
f  See  Mosheim's  '  Ecclesiastical  History,'  Maclaine's  Translation,  Tegg's 
edition,  vol.  i.,  pp.  313-14. 

J  Bohn's  edition  of  Giles's  Translation,  pp.  331-2. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          19 

Bishop  of  Rochester,  with  the  abbots,  but  also  by  the 
abbesses,  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  proceedings,  and 
received  an  especial  injunction  from  the  king,  by  their 
good  precepts  and  example  to  instruct  and  advise  their 
sections  of  the  community. 

Osburga,  the  wife  of  King  Ethelwulf,  is  described  by 
the  British  Asser,  Bishop  of  St.  David's,  Exeter,  and 
Sherborne,  as  "  a  religious  woman,  noble  both  by  birth 
and  nature."  *  This  Saxon  queen,  by  means  of  an  illu- 
minated manuscript  of  native  poetry,  which  she  offered  as 
a  reward,  stimulated  the  literary  emulation  of  her  sons, 
and  aroused  to  earnest  activity  the  mind  of  her  youngest, 
afterwards  the  glorious  King  Alfred  the  Great.  His 
eldest  daughter,  Ethelfleda,  inherited  her  father's  high 
qualities — moral,  mental,  and  martial.  She  probably 
shared  the  same  advantages  of  education  as  her  brother 
Ethelwerd  and  her  sister  Ethelswitha,  of  whom  Asser 
records  that  they  learned  to  write,  and  could  read  books 
both  in  the  Latin  and  Saxon  languages ;  "  for  they  have 
carefully  learned  the  Psalms  and  Saxon  books,  especially 
the  Saxon  poems,  and  are  continually  in  the  habit  of 
making  use  of  books."  f  She  married  Ethelred  Earl  of 
Mercia,  and,  surviving  him  several  years,  governed  and 
defended  that  territory  with  extraordinary  discretion  and 
skill.  She  was  commonly  called  "  The  Lady  of  the 
Mercians : "  to  her,  King  Athelstan,  her  nephew,  was 
indebted  for  his  good  political  training,  and  she  won  from 
the  chroniclers  of  her  times  the  well-deserved  praise  of 
being  "  the  wisest  woman  in  England."  This  Saxon 
Zenobia  died  at  Tamworth  twelve  days  before  Midsummer, 

*  'Life  of  Alfred,'  Bolm's  edition  of  Giles's  Translation,  p.  44. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  68. 

c2 


20          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

in  the  year  922,  and  was  buried  "  within  the  east  porch  of 
St.  Peter's  Church  at  Gloucester."  * 

Queen  Editha,  the  daughter  of  Earl  Godwin,  and  the 
wife  of  King  Edward  the  Confessor,  was  a  woman  of  cul- 
tivated mind,  and  well  acquainted  with  books.  Ingulphus, 
or  the  pseudo-historian  of  Croyland,  relates,  that  in  his 
boyhood,  when  visiting  his  father,  who  held  an  employ- 
ment about  the  court,  he  often  met  her  Majesty  as  he 
came  from  school,  and  that  she  questioned  him  concerning 
his  studies  and  verses,  "  and,  willingly  passing  from  gram- 
mar to  logic,"  would  catch  him  in  the  subtleties  of  argu- 
ment ;  not  omitting  afterwards  to  make  her  handmaiden 
count  out  for  him  a  pecuniary  reward,  and  sending  him  to 
the  buttery  to  refresh  himself."  t  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  genuineness  of  the  i  History  of  Croyland/  it 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  the  facts  related  of  the  queen 
accorded  with  her  known  character  and  acquirements. 

Amidst  the  general  "stagnation  of  the  poetical  facul- 
ties "  in  Europe  during  the  dark  ages  which  preceded  the 
twelfth  century,  Mr.  Hallam  mentions  "  Anglo-Saxon 
poetry  of  a  wild  spirit,  rather  impressive,  though  often 
turgid  and  always  rude ;"  and,  in  a  note,  quoting  Tira- 
boschi's  allusion  to  Latin  versifiers  in  Italy,  he  adds, — 
"  Hroswitha,  Abbess  of  Gandersheim,  has  perhaps  the 
greatest  reputation  among  these  Latin  poets.  She  wrote, 
in  the  tenth  century,  sacred  comedies  in  imitation  of 
Terence,  which  I  have  not  seen,  and  other  poetry  which  I 
saw  many  years  since,  and  thought  very  indifferent."  ^ 

On  the  same  subject  Richard  Price  says, — "  Perhaps 
the  plays  of  Hroswitha,  a  nun  of  Gandersheim,  in  Lower 

*  See  Giles's  '  Anglo-Saxon  Chron.' 
f  •  Pict.  Hist.  Eng.,'  part  i.,  p.  187. 
|  '  Lit.  Eur.,'  vol.  i.,  p.  10,  ed.  iv. 


LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  21 

Saxony,  who  lived  towards  the  close  of  the  tenth  century, 
afford  the  earliest  specimens  of  dramatic  composition 
since  the  decline  of  the  Roman  empire.  They  were  pro- 
fessedly written  for  the  benefit  of  those  Christians  who, 
abjuring  all  other  heathen  writers,  were  irresistibly  at- 
tracted by  the  graces  of  Terence,  to  the  imminent  danger 
of  their  spiritual  welfare,  and  the  certain  pollution  of  their 
moral  feelings."*  Her  works  were  first  printed  at  Nu- 
remberg, by  Conrad  Celtes,  in  the  year  1501. 

William  of  Malmesbury  informs  us  that  Queen  Matilda, 
daughter  of  Malcolm  in.,  King  of  Scotland,  niece  of 
Edgar  Atheling,  and  first  wife  of  King  Henry  I.  of  England, 
"  had  given  her  attention  to  literature,  being  educated  from 
her  infancy  among  the  nuns  at  Wilton  and  Komsey."f  He 
mentions  also  her  lavish  generosity  to  "  clerks  of  melo- 
dious voice,"  and  to  trouveurs.  Queen  Matilda  died  in  the 
year  1107;  and  in  1121  King  Henry  married  Adeliza, 
daughter  of  Godfrey  Duke  of  Louvaine;  who  emulated 
her  predecessor  in  the  liberal  patronage  she  afforded  to  the 
trouveurs. 

In  Mrs.  Everett  Green's  collection  of  the  *  Letters  of 
Royal  and  Illustrious  Ladies  of  Great  Britain,  from  the 
commencement  of  the  Twelfth  Century  to  the  close  of  the 
Reign  of  Queen  Mary,'  }  the  earliest  are  two  from  Queen 
Matilda  to  Anselm  Archbishop  of  Canterbury ;  their  pro- 
bable date  being  about  A.D.  1103.  There  are  also  epistles 
from  Adela  Countess  of  Blois,  youngest  daughter  of  King 
William  the  Conqueror ;  from  the  Empress  Matilda ;  from 
Mary  Countess  of  Boulogne,  the  daughter  of  King  Stephen  ; 
and  from  many  of  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  Plan- 

*  Note  to  section  vi.  of  Warton's  •  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry.' 
t  Giles's  Translation,  Bohn's  ed.,  p.  452. 
t  3  vols.,  Colbnrn,  184<3. 


22          LITEEAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

tagenets ;  but  the  originals  are  all  in  the  Latin  language, 
and  written  by  professional  scribes ;  although  in  several 
instances  the  feelings  and  characters  of  the  women  at 
whose  command  or  desire  they  were  penned  shine  clearly- 
through  the  borrowed  words.  One  passionate  effusion, 
addressed  by  Queen  Eleanor,  the  widow  of  Henry  II.,  to 
Pope  Celestine,  on  the  subject  of  her  son  Kichard  Coeur  de 
Lion's  captivity,  is  evidently  dictated  by  herself,  and 
merely  Latinized  by  her  secretary;  for  even  in  the 
English  translation  the  emotions  of  the  woman  and  the 
mother  predominate. 

Mr.  Hallam  declares  that  "  Before  the  end  of  the 
eleventh  century,  and  especially  after  the  ninth,  it  was 
rare  to  find  laymen  in  France  who  could  read  and  write ;" 
and  that  "  The  case  was  probably  not  better  anywhere 
else,  except  in  Italy."  * 

It  would  appear  that  in  the  tenth  century  the  case  must 
have  been  much  better  in  Wales,  for  Howel  Dda,  the 
sovereign  prince,  was  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  his 
code  of  laws  by  the  chiefs  of  tribes,  and  by  other  laymen 
of  noble  rank,  besides  a  hundred  and  forty  of  the  clergy. 
Those  laws  bear  witness  to  the  high  estimation  in  which 
literature,  and  the  bards,  its  lay  professors,  were  then  held.f 

The  hero  of  a  Welsh  poem,  long  erroneously  attributed 
to  Taliesin,  says, — 

"I  have  been  gifted  with  genius 
From  the  cauldron  of  Ceridwen/'J 


*  '  Lit.  Eur.,'  vol.  i.,  p.  51,  ed.  iv. 

t  See  '  The  Literary  Remains  of  the  Kev.  Thomas  Price,'  vol.  i.,  pp. 
115-232,  '  On  the  Comparative  Merits  of  the  Remains  of  Ancient  Lite- 
rature,' especially  pp.  154-5  ;  see  also  the  Translation  of  '  The  Laws  of 
Howel  Dda,'  by  Aneurin  Owen,  and  published  by  the  Eecord  Office  ; 
and  see  likewise  Powel's  '  History  of  Cambria.' 

t  See  the  Appendix  to  Giles's  Translation  of  Nennius's  '  History  of  the 
Britons,'  p.  42.  James  Bohn's  8vo.  edition. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          23 

In  the  Welsh  language,  one  word,  cawr,  expresses  a  great 
pei-son,  whether  it  be  a  giant  in  bodily  size,  according  to 
the  primary  sense,  or  a  hero,  or  a  genius.  This  Ceridwen 
was  a  giantess,  an  eminent  woman,  and  an  enchantress 
of  what  has  been  termed  the  Neo-druidic  period,  A.D. 
600-1200,  when  the  old  national  mythology,  which  had 
vanished  away  long  centuries  before  in  the  light  of  Chris- 
tianity from  the  popular  belief,  was  again  evoked  as  a 
poetical  theory  by  the  bards :  just  as  the  theogony  of  Greece 
and  Rome  continued  in  more  recent  times  to  mystify  the 
literature  of  modern  Europe.  Ceridwen  was  a  type  of 
inventive  fertility ;  she  was  a  Ceres,  a  Luna,  and  a  Minerva 
in  one.  Her  cauldron  she  medicated  with  herbs  so  eflfica- 
cacious,  that  three  drops  of  the  contents,  touching  the  lips 
of  a  bard,  imparted  the  prophetic  power  of  beholding  all 
futurity.*  Hence  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  British 
bards  of  the  period  thought  not  less  highly  of  the  intellect 
of  women  than  the  ancient  Greeks  did ;  although  the 
apparent  compliment  might  perchance  in  both  nations 
have  consisted  merely  in  the  idea  of  maternal  production. 

The  earliest  female  writer  mentioned  by  Warton  is 
Mary  of  France,  who,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  transfused 
and  versified  the  old  traditionary  tales  of  Armorica  into 
those  Lays  of  the  Romance  language,  of  which  the  MS. 
still  exists  among  the  earliest  specimens  of  Romantic 
fiction.  She  was  born  on  the  Continent,  but  wrote  in 
England,  and  died  about  the  year  1268.  Her  'Poesies,' 
including  her  Lays,  Fables,  &c.,  were  published  by  M.  de 
Roquefort  in  1820.  Translations  of  the  Lays  may  be 
found  in  Ellis's  '  Early  English  Metrical  Romances.' 

Early  in  the  fifteenth  century  Christina  of  Pisa  flour- 

*  See  the  loloMSS. 


24  LITEEAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

ished.  She  translated  several  works  from  the  Latin  into 
the  French  language.  Her  '  Moral  Proverbs '  were  trans- 
lated into  English  by  Anthony  Woodville,  Earl  Kivers, 
who  lost  his  head  with  Vaughan  and  Grey  at  Pornfret 
Castle ;  they  were  printed  by  Caxton  in  1477.  Caxton 
likewise  printed  a  translation  of  her  '  Book  of  Feats  of 
Arms  and  of  Chivalry.'  Warton  quotes  from  those  proverbs 
one  quaint  couplet : — 

"  Little  valueth  good  example  to  see, 
For  him  that  will  not  the  contrary  flee." 

The  discouragement  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  literature  under 
King  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  the  Norman  and  Anglo- 
Norman  sovereigns,  suppressed  the  literary  spirit  of  the 
country,  and  produced  an  era  of  ignorance.  From  the  reign 
of  Edward  the  Confessor  until  the  reign  of  the  Plantagenet 
Edward  III.,  French  was  the  language  of  the  English 
court  and  of  the  upper  classes  of  English  society.  The 
most  exact  and  most  elliptical  of  historians  states  that 
"English  was  seldom  written,  and  hardly  employed  in 
prose,  till  after  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century."* 

He  mentions  "  an  English  letter  from  the  lady  of  Sir 
John  Pelham  to  her  husband  in  1399,  which  is  probably 
one  of  the  earliest  instances  of  female  penmanship ;"  sati- 
rically adding,  "  By  the  badness  of  the  grammar,  we  may 
presume  it  to  be  her  own.f  In  a  note  he  gives  a  copy  of 
it  from  Collins  (who  derived  it  from  the  archives  of  the 
Newcastle  family),  describing  it  as  "  the  oldest  private  letter 
in  the  English  language,"  and  remarking  that  others  of  an 
earlier  date  will  probably  be  found ;  "  at  least  it  cannot 
now  be  doubtful  that  some  were  written,  since  a  lady  is 
not  likely  to  set  the  example."  This  acute  inference  is 

*  '  Lit.  Eur.,'  vol.  i.,  p.  49,  eel.  iv.  f  Ibid.,  p.  54. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          25 

doubtless  correct,  and,  so  far  from  being  a  censure,  may 
rather  be  deemed  a  commendation,  for  the  characteristic  of 
feminine  talent  has  ever  been  rather  to  refine  and  to 
improve  upon  inventions  than  to  originate  them. 

In  another  passage  Mr.  Hallam  alludes  to  this  letter  as 
"  ungrammatical  and  unintelligible."  Allowing  the  truth 
of  the  first  charge,  it  may  be  contended  that  the  second 
rests  not  upon  the  diction,  but  upon  our  ignorance  of  the 
state  of  the  people  in  the  counties  of  "  Sussex,  Surrey,  and 
a  great  parcel  of  Kent,"  at  the  period  when  Lady  Pelham 
wrote  to  Sir  John  from  his  castle  of  Pevensey. 

The  daughters  of  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster, 
were  the  first  Englishwomen  who  knew  how  to  write  ;  and 
Johanna  of  Navarre,  his  daughter-in-law,  widow  of  John, 
sixth  Duke  of  Bretagne,  and  second  wife  of  King  Henry  IV. 
of  England,  is  the  first  English  queen  whose  autograph 
signature  is  known  to  be  extant :  *  A.D.  1415.  Her 
"  Jehane "  shows  the  process  by  which  the  name  of 
Johanna  was  softened  down  into  "  Jane."f 

A  letter  from  Constance  Lady  Husee  to  King  Henry  VI., 
A.D.  1-141,  is  introduced  by  Mrs.  Everett  Green  as  "  the 
earliest  specimen  which  had  fallen  under  her  notice  of  an 
English  epistle  written  by  a  lady."  { 

According  to  Sir  Henry  Ellis,  the  correspondence  of 
literate  persons  in  England,  previous  to  the  reign  of  King 
Henry  V.,  was  usually  carried  on  either  in  the  Latin  or 
French  language.  This  fact  might  also  be  reasonably  in- 
ferred from  the  predominance  of  the  priests,  and  their 


*  '  Letters  of  Royal  and  Illustrious  Ladies  of  Great  Britain,  from  the 
commencement  of  the  Twelfth  Century  to  the  close  of  the  Reign  of 
Queen  Mary,'  edited  by  Mary  Amne  Everett  Wood.  3  vols.  8vo. 

t  Ibid.     See  the  facsimiles  prefixed  to  the  first  vol. 

i  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  l»2. 


26  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Latin  ministrations ;  and  from  the  French  habits  and 
tendencies  of  the  court  and  aristocracy. 

There  is  no  better  test  of  mental  culture,  either  in  an 
individual  or  an  age,  than  familiar  letters  afford.  Of  the 
four  hundred  and  forty-three  Paston  Letters,  in  Knight's 
edition,  belonging  to  the  historical  period  1440-84,  nearly 
one-third  are  written  by  women  or  addressed  to  women. 
Several,  upon  urgent  affairs,  are  directed  either  for  "  The 
Bight  Worshipful  John  Paston,"  or,  in  his  absence,  for 
"  The  Eight  Worshipful  Mistress  Paston,"  his  wife.  Then, 
as  ever,  sagacious  minds  and  strong  wills  gained  domestic 
ascendency,  and  Dame  Agnes  and  Mistress  Margaret  in- 
fluenced their  husbands,  controlled  their  children,  governed 
their  servants,  retainers,  and  tenants ;  and,  whenever  occa- 
sion required,  acted  as  able  deputies  or  principals  in  the 
management  of  landed  and  personal  property,  and  in  the 
transaction  of  all  sorts  of  business.  Their  letters,  and 
the  letters  of  many  other*  ladies  and  gentlewomen  of  the 
party,  are  not  inferior  in  style,  sense,  or  spirit  to  those  of 
the  greater  number  of  their  male  correspondents. 

The  letter  addressed  to  Sir  John  Paston  by  Elizabeth 
Duchess  of  Suffolk,  sister  of  King  Edward  IV.,  written 
about  the  year  1461,  is  noticed  by  Mrs.  Everett  Green  as 
"  the  earliest  holograph  of  any  royal  lady  of  England  of 
which  we  have  any  record."  * 

A  note  subjoined  to  this  statement  says  that  "  In  the 
Tower  collection  are  several  English  letters  written  towards 
the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  but  they  are  of  no 
particular  interest,  and  are  from  females  of  inferior  station." 

This  information  is  important,  as  a  proof  that  education 
at  that  period  was  not  the  exclusive  privilege  of  women  of 

*  '  Letters  of  Royal  and  Illustrious  Ladies,'  vol.  i.  p.  94. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          27 

ln'irh  rank;  but  it  may  be  safely  asserted,  until  further 
evidence  is  produced,  that  no  English  females  under  the 
degree  of  gentlewomen,  unless  they  were  nuns,  could  at 
that  period  read  and  write. 

In  all  ages  and  countries,  there  have  been,  are,  and  can 
be,  only  two  sorts  of  epistolary  missives — the  formal  and 
the  spontaneous.  Cultivation  alters  them,  and  their  com- 
binations produce  innumerable  varieties,  but  in  these  the 
original  species  can  always  be  distinctly  traced.  The 
formal  is  known  by  its  clidging,  supporting,  and  shaping 
itself  upon  some  rule,  frame-work,  or  type.  The  earliest 
compositions  of  children,  those  of  persons  educated  chiefly 
by  the  ear,  those  of  crafty  persons,  and  those  of  scholars 
whose  learning  oppresses  their  mental  energy,  are  always 
more  or  less  stiffly  artificial  and  formal. 

The  letters  of  those  persons  who  write  as  freely  as  they 
think  and  speak  may  properly  be  termed  natural  and 
'spontaneous,  whatever  tincture  they  may  show  of  their 
author's  education  or  ignorance.  Each  several  letter  of 
the  Paston  collection  exhibits  a  crude,  unblended  junction 
of  artificially-formal  beginnings  and  endings,  with  inter- 
vening passages  of  spontaneously-natural  utterance :  set 
phrases  being  constantly  used,  nevertheless,  for  the  com- 
munication of  certain  kinds  of  information,  such  as  tidings 
of  mortal  sickness  or  death. 

Family  interests,  family  acquisitions,  worldly  advance- 
ment, and  personal  convenience ;  the  cares  of  lands  and 
houses,  goods  and  chattels,  profits  and  losses,  are  the  en- 
grossing topics  of  all ;  with  such  narrations  of  the  political 
troubles  of  the  time  as  interfered  with  the  private  welfare 
of  the  writers.  The  wearing  out  of  villenage,  and  the 
little  injury  inflicted  upon  the  country  by  the  civil  war, 
may  be  inferred  from  this  correspondence. 


28          LITEKARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Treating  of  the  period  1440  to  1500,  Mr.  Hallam  says 
of  the  Paston  Letters : — "  They  are  all  written  in  the 
reigns  of  Henry  VI.  and  Edward  IV.,  except  a  few  as  late 
as  Henry  VII.,  by  different  members  of  a  wealthy  and 
respectable,  but  not  noble,  English  family ;  and  are, 
therefore,  pictures  of  the  life  of  the  English  gentry  in 
that  age.  We  are  merely  concerned  with  their  evidence 
as  to  the  state  of  literature.  And  this,  upon  the  whole,  is 
more  favourable  than,  from  the  want  of  authorship  in  those 
reigns,  we  should  be  led  to  anticipate.  It  is  plain  that 
several  members  of  the  family,  male  and  female,  wrote, 
not  only  grammatically,  but  with  a  fluency  and  facility, 
an  epistolary  expertness,  which  implies  the  habitual  use  of 
the  pen."  * 

Only  twc  autographs  of  Queen  Elizabeth  Woodville  are 
known  to  be  extant.  One  is  the  signature  of  a  letter, f 
and  the  other  is  attached  to  a  letter-patent.  The  former 
reproves  Sir  William  Stonor  for  hunting  and  slaying  her 
deer  in  the  forest  and  chace  of  Barn  wood  and  Excell ;  the 
latter  relates  to  her  tenants,  Henry  and  Alice  Grey, 
probably  kinsfolk  of  her  first  husband,  who  had  been  im- 
pleaded  in  the  King's  Court. 

JULIANA  PRIORESS  OF  SOPEWELL. 

Juliana,  daughter  of  Sir  James  Berners,  of  Berners 
Koding,  in  the  county  of  Essex,  and  sister  to  Bichard 
Lord  Berners,  was,  in  the  year  1460,  and  for  many  years 
afterwards,  Prioress  of  Sopewell  Nunnery.  She  is  said  to 
have  been  a  learned  and  accomplished  woman,  and  ap- 
pears in  the  fore-front  of  our  English  authoresses  on  the 

*  '  Lit.  Eur.,'  vol.  i.,  p.  165,  ed.  iv. 

t  'Letters  of  Royal  and  Illustrious  Ladies,'  vol.  i.,  p.  110. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  'J!» 

strength  of  her  claim  to  the  compilation  and  translation 
of  certain  treatises  upon  hawking,  hunting,  fishing,  and 
armoury.  They  were  first  printed  in  1468,  at  the  neigh- 
bouring monastery  of  St.  Albans,  and  again  in  1496  by 
Wynkyn  de  Worde.  The  treatise  on  hunting  is  in  rhyme, 
which  makes  no  approach  to  poetry.  The  coarseness  of 
her  details  does  discredit  alike  to  her  character  as  a 
gentlewoman  and  as  a  nun. 

Although  the  sports  of  the  field  were  generally  pro- 
hibited to  the  religious  orders,  yet,  on  various  pretexts, 
special  exemptions  were  granted,  and  wealthy  monks  and 
nuns  went  out  as  well  equipped  to  hunt  and  hawk  as  any 
of  their  lay  compeers.  It  may,  therefore,  be  concluded 
that  Juliana,  the  Prioress  of  Sopewell,  was  practically 
well  acquainted  with  the  subjects  on  which  she  wrote. 

Previous  to  the  year  1500  several  women  of  illustrious 
rank,  although  not  personally  known  as  scholars  or  au- 
thoresses, proved  their  true  appreciation  of  the  advantages 
of  learning  by  founding  colleges  and  halls  at  the  Uni- 
versities. 

During  the  reigns  of  King  Henry  III.  and  King  Ed- 
ward L,  and  between  the  years  1263  and  1284,  Balliol 
College,  Oxford,  was  founded  by  John  Balliol,  of  Bernard 
Castle,  and  by  Devorguilla  his  wife,  the  grand-parents  of 
John  Balliol,  afterwards  King  of  Scotland.  Granger  men- 
tions a  mezzotinto  engraving  from  a  portrait  in  the  Oxford 
Gallery  which  bears  her  name,  but  really  represents  Jenny 
Keeks,  an  apothecary's  daughter. 

In  the  year  1340  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  was  founded 
by  Robert  Eglesfield,  chaplain  and  confessor  to  Queen 
Philippa,  consort  of  King  Edward  III.,  and  avowedly 
with  her  Majesty's  "favour  and  assistance."  Granger 
mentions  a  whole-length  mezzotinto  engraving  of  her, 


30          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

taken  from  a  painting  at  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  the 
face  being  derived  from  an  ancient  stone  head  of  this 
queen  over  the  back  gate  of  the  college. 

In  the  same  year  Clare  Hall,  Cambridge,  was  founded 
by  Kichard  Badew,  who,  not  being  rich  enough  to  fulfil 
his  intention,  was  munificently  aided  by  Elizabeth  de 
Clare,  Countess  of  Ulster,  the  third  sister  and  co-heir  of 
Gilbert  Earl  of  Clare.  Granger  mentions  a  mezzotinto 
engraving  of  this  countess,  "  E.  Tabula  in  Aula  Clarensi." 

In  1347  Mary  St.  Paul,  Countess  of  Pembroke,  founded 
Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge.  She  was  that  bride  of 
melancholy  notoriety  whose  gallant  bridegroom,  Audemar 
de  Valence,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  was  accidentally  slain  in  a 
tilting-match  upon  the  wedding-day.  Immediately  and 
for  ever  sequestrating  herself  from  the  world,  the  widowed 
Countess  devoted  her  subsequent  life  to  prayer  and  to 
acts  of  piety  and  charity.  Granger  mentions  a  mezzotinto 
engraving  of  her,  without  alluding  to  any  original  por- 
trait. 

Queen's  College,  Cambridge,  was  founded  in  1446  by 
Queen  Margaret  of  Anjou,  the  consort  of  King  Henry  VI., 
and  re-founded  in  1465  by  Queen  Elizabeth  Woodville, 
the  consort  of  King  Edward  IV.,  thus  blending  the  rival 
roses.  Granger  mentions  a  portrait  of  Queen  Margaret  in 
the  refectory  of  the  College,  and  two  engravings  of  her, 
besides  a  figure  in  Montfaucon's  'Monumens  de  la  Mo- 
narchie  Franchise,'  but  doubts  the  genuineness  of  all. 
He  mentions  only  one  engraving  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
Woodville. 


I.ITKKAKY    WOMEN   OF    RMO1   \M>.  •"•  1 


CHAPTER  II. 


A.D.    1500-1550. 

Margaret  Countess  of  Richmond  —  Remarks  on  the  period  —  Queen  Anno 
Boleyn  —  The  daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  More  —  Margaret  Gigs  —  Anne 
Askew  —  Queen  Catherine  Parr  —  Frances  Lady  Abergavenny. 


"  The  tender  lark  will  find  a  time  to  fly, 

And  fearful  hare  to  run  a  quiet  race  ; 
He  that  high  growth  on  cedars  did  bestow, 
Gave  also  lowly  mushrooms  leave  to  grow." 

ROBERT  SOUTHWELL. 


MARGARET  COUNTESS  OF  RICHMOND. 
MARGARET  BEAUFORT  was  esteemed  in  many  particulars 
the  model  woman  of  her  time.  She  was  born  in  the  year 
1410,  at  Bletshoe,  in  Bedfordshire — the  only  child  and 
heiress  of  John  Beaufort,  Duke  of  Somerset,  and  of  his 
wife  Margaret  Beauchamp,  daughter  of  Lord  Beauchamp, 
of  Powick.  By  her  first  husband,  Edmund  Tudor,  Earl  of 
Richmond,  she  became  the  mother  of  her  only  child, 
afterwards  King  Henry  VII.  Her  second  husband  was 
Sir  Henry  Stafford,  and  her  third  Thomas  Lord  Stanley, 
subsequently  created  Earl  of  Derby. 

She  naturally  possessed  great  mental  sagacity;  she 
made  herself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  English  and 
French  languages,  and  slightly  with  the  Latin.  She 
translated  from  the  French  the  fourth  book  of  Gerson's 
*  Treatise  on  the  Imitation  of  our  Saviour,'  and  from  a 
French  translation  the  'Speculum  aureum  Peccatorum.' 


32  LITEBARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

She  also,  by  her  royal  "son's  command  and  authority," 
says  Horace  Walpole,  "  made  the  orders,  yet  extant,  for 
great  estates  of  ladies  and  noblewomen,  for  their  pre- 
cedence, attires,  and  wearing  of  barbes  at  funerals  over 
the  chin  and  under  the  same."  Many  devotional  books 
were  avowedly  printed  at  her  desire,  and  probably  at  her 
expense. 

The  only  two  letters  of  hers  known  to  be  extant  are 
printed  among  those  of  '  Koyal  and  Illustrious  Ladies  '  in 
the  first  volume  of  Mrs.  Everett  Green's  collection.  It  is 
remarkable  that,  although  she  never  attained  to  regal 
dignity,  she  signed  her  name  "  Margaret  R." — an  indica- 
tion of  pretentious  vanity.  The  first  of  those  letters  is  a 
mere  order,  and  goes  straight  and  briefly  to  its  purpose ; 
the  second  is  addressed  to  King  Henry  VII.,  and  indicates 
an  ^ambitious  and  crafty  mind — the  caressing  tone  of  the 
mother  being  artfully  blended  with  the  submissiveness  of 
the  "  servant  and  beadwoman."  Until  age  brought  death 
into  obvious  proximity,  she  was  a  busy  woman  of  the 
world,  and  then  she  put  on  the  dress  and  habits  of  a  reli- 
gious recluse.  Like  many  other  royal  personages,  she 
excelled  in  ornamental  needlework  ;  and  it  is  said  that 
King  James  L,  in  his  progresses,  constantly  visited 
Bletshoe,  and  called  for  a  sight  of  the  specimens  of  her 
art  which  were  preserved  there.* 

The  "  venerable  Margaret "  eulogised  by  Gray  t  founded 
the  Divinity  Lectureships  of  Oxford  and  of  Cambridge, 
and  re-founded  the  Colleges  called  Christ's  (1505)  and 
St.  John's  (1511)  in  the  last-mentioned  University.  She 
also  founded  a  free-school  at  Wymbourn,  in  Dorsetshire. 

*  Wilford,  p.  552. 

f  "  Leaning  from  her  golden  cloud, 

The  venerable  Margaret  see."— Ode  for  Music. . 


L1TKKAKY     \\o\IKN    of    KNUl.ANh.  '•>•' 

survived  her  son,  King  Jlenry  VII.,  tor  three 
months,  Margaret  Countess  of  Richmond  died  June  29, 
150i),  agod  (>!).  Her  funeral  sermon,  preached  by  Bishop 
Fisher,  is  admirable  for  characteristic  details. 

She  was  buried  in  King  Henry  VII.'s  Chapel,  where 
her  tomb  and  effigy  may  yet  be  seen.  The  inscription  is 
said  to  have  been  written  by  Erasmus. 

Granger  mentions  a  portrait  of  her  at  Hatfield  House, 
and  gives  an  account  of  three  engravings.  There  is  one  in 
Park's  edition  of  Horace  Walpole's  *  Catalogue  of  Royal  and 
Noble  Authors,'  representing  her  as  a  gaunt  and  aged  nun. 

The  revival  of  classical  learning  and  the  progress  of 
the  religious  reformation  have  set  their  impress  strongly 
upon  the  sixteenth  century.  In  Margaret  Beaufort,  the 
great-granddaughter  of  John  of  Gaunt,  an  example  has 
been  given  of  the  most  highly  cultivated  Englishwoman  of 
her  time,  1440-1509.  The  printing-presses  of  Caxton  and 
of  Wynkyn  de  Worde  had  now  multiplied  the  number  of 
books  by  an  increase  of  copies,  by  the  introduction  of  new 
translations,  and  by  the  production  of  original  works. 
The  progress  of  learning  on  the  Continent  became  a  favour- 
ite topic  of  English  conversation;  and  knowledge,  which 
had  appeared  extraordinary  in  the  youthful  days  of  Mar- 
garet Beaufort,  was  expected  as  a  thing  of  course  in  the 
youthful  days  of  her  granddaughters. 

The  eldest  daughter  of  King  Henry  VII.,  Margaret 
Tudor,  Queen  of  Scotland,  occasionally  employed  a  clerk, 
although  the  greater  number  of  her  crafty  epistles,  full  of 
manifold  discontents  and  never-ending  solicitations,  are 
written  by  her  o\vn  hand.  The  beautiful  and  benevolent 
.Mary  Tudor,  Queen  of  France,  seems  always  to  have 
written  her  own.  Elizabeth  Countess  of  Kildare,  Mar- 
garet Countess  of  Salisbury,  Anne  Lady  Redo,  Anne 

D 


34          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Countess  of  Oxford,  and  Elizabeth  Duchess  of  Norfolk, 
wrote  readily  in  English,  A.D.  1500-25 ;  and,  after  that 
period,  female  letter-writers  in  the  upper  classes  of  society 
multiplied  abundantly. 

People  who  have  acquired  a  little  valuable  knowledge 
have  usually  acquired  also  both  the  means  and  the  desire 
to  augment  it.  The  ability  to  read  and  write,  and  the 
power  of  transfusing  thoughts,  though  shallow  ones,  into  a 
second  language,  prepared  those  among  the  women  of 
England  who  enjoyed  such  privileges  to  appreciate  mental 
cultivation ;  it  excited  their  sympathy  in  the  intellectual 
activity  of  men  of  genius,  and  their  ambition  to  emulate 
the  attainments  of  the  women  of  Italy.  The  consequence 
was  that  tutors,  who  a  few  years  before  would  have  been 
content  to  praise  the  progress  of  their  female  pupils  in  col- 
loquial and  epistolary  French  and  English,  delighted  at 
discovering  in  them  a  thirst -for  deeper  knowledge,  grati- 
fied it  with  all  the  eagerness  with  which  learners  teach. 
"  Greek  is  said  to  have  been  first  publicly  taught  in  this 
country,  in  St.  Paul's  school,  by  the  famous  William  Lily, 
who  had  studied  the  language  at  Rhodes,  and  who  was 
appointed  the  first  master  of  the  new  school  in  1512."* 
The  works  of  Homer,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Demosthenes, 
Isocrates,  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Xenophon,  which 
laborious  scholars  were  then  enjoying  in  their  collegiate 
cells  for  the  first  time,  soon  gained  an  introduction  to 
England's  palaces  and  mansions,  and  shared  with  Latin 
authors  the  favour  of  studious  ladies.  Thus  classic  literature 
became  the  fashion  in  the  reign  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  and 
held  its  place  of  honour  until  the  extinction  of  his  dynasty. 

In  the  biographical  sketches  which  follow,  brief  as  they 
are,  care  has  been  taken  to  give  the  locality  of  birth,  resi- 

*  Craik's  '  Lit.  and  Learning,'  vol.  ii.,  p.  202. 


I.ITKKAI,^     WOMEN    UK    KMM.ANh. 

<l<Mi<v.  and  death,  whenever  it  could  be  ascertained,  because 
such  associations  between  eminent  persons  and  places  tend 
not  only  to  enhance  the  historic  character  of  a  country,  but 
also  to  stimulate  the  natural  interest  of  individual  readers 
for  scenes  severally  familiar  to  their  eyes.  Where  light- 
n  ing  has  once  struck,  it  is  apt  to  strike  again;  where 
certain  rare,  indigenous  plants  have  once  sprung  up,  others 
of  the  same  kind  may  be  looked  for ;  and  where  the  tradi- 
tional memory  of  excellence  is  preserved,  its  voice  may 
call  forth  emulative  forms.  Every  eminent  name  becomes 
a  trophy  of  success  or  a  pillar  of  warning;  and  more 
strikingly  such  upon  the  very  ground  once  trodden  by  its 
owner,  where  the  scene,  the  rivers,  the  sky,  the  air,  seem 
all  whispering  incentives  to  be  good  and  to  be  great,  to 
be  good  and  to  be  great  for  immortality.  There  are 
persons  whom  localities  affect  only  by  means  of  associations, 
and  to  them  such  memorials  are  means  of  increasing 
happiness,  while  they  add  an  unspeakable  charm  to  the 
enjoyment  of  those  who  delight  in  scenery  merely  for  its 
own  sake. 

QUEEN  ANNE  BOLEYN. 

Horace  Walpole,  in  his  'Catalogue  of  the  Royal  and 
Noble  Authors  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,'  places 
Queen  Anne  Boleyn  first  in  date  among  the  women.  She 
was  one  of  the  two  daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn,  after- 
wards Earl  of  Wiltshire,  and  of  the  Lady  Elizabeth  Howard, 
his  first  wife.  Her  father  held  a  place  in  the  royal  house- 
hold; her  mother  was  a  reigning  beauty,  and  figured 
advantageously  in  all  the  Court  masques  and  pageants  of 
her  day.  Anne  Boleyn  was  born  in  or  about  the  year 
1499,  at  her  father's  seat,  Blickling  Hall,  in  Norfolk, 
where  she  was  carefully  brought  up  with  her  brother 


36  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

George  and  her  sister  Mary  until  the  death  of  her  mother, 
which  occurred  in  1512.*  Sir  Thomas  soon  afterwards 
married  again,  and  removed  with  all  his  family  to  Hever 
Castle,  in  Kent,  where  Anne's  education  was  superintended 
by  a  French  governess  named  Simonette.  She  acquired 
early  excellence  in  music,  dancing,  and  needlework,  spoke 
and  wrote  her  native  language  and  that  of  France  with 
graceful  facility,  and  gave  indications  of  unusual  aptness 
for  the  arts  of  attraction  and  for  every  courtly  accom- 
plishment. 

The  society  of  their  neighbour  and  contemporary,  the 
highly-gifted  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  probably  fostered  in  her 
and  in  her  brother  that  taste  for  lyric  poetry  by  which  they 
were  subsequently  distinguished.  In  the  month  of  Sep- 
tember, and  the  year  1514,  she  accompanied  her  father  to 
London,  having  been  appointed  one  of  the  four  Maids-of- 
Honour  to  the  Princess  Mary  of  England  on  Her  Eoyal 
Highness's  marriage  with  King  Louis  XII.  of  France.  In 
this  capacity  she  attended  the  ceremonial  in  the  church  of 
the  Grey  Friars  at  Greenwich  when  the  Duke  de  Longue- 
ville  acted  as  proxy  for  his  Sovereign ;  and  she  was  after- 
wards present  at  the  celebration  of  the  royal  nuptials  at 
Abbeville. 

Anne  Boleyn  was  tall  in  stature,  slim  in  form,  lithe  and 
agile  in  movement ;  her  complexion  was  dark,  and  her 
eyes  brilliant.  Her  temper,  though  social  and  kindly,  was 
haughty  and  impulsive,  and  not  without  that  tendency  to 
simulation  and  dissimulation  which  so  strangely,  yet  so 
frequently,  belongs  to  persons  of  undisciplined  feelings. 
Her  mental  apprehension  was  quick,  her  spirits  were  gay 
and  volatile,  and  she  practised  that  indefinable  attractive- 
ness of  behaviour  which  is  felt  to  be  fascination.  Lord 

*  This  fact  rests  on  the  authority  of  '  The  Howard  Papers.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  37 

Herbert  describes  her  as  possessing  "all  the  graces  which 
belong  to  rest  or  motion." 

Her  prudent  father  went  \\  itli  her  to  France,  and  left 
her  then1,  under  the  charge  of  a  trusty  kinsman.  She  was 
doubtless  dismissed  from  her  attendance  on  Queen  Mary, 
together  with  the  other  English  ladies  of  the  bridal  train, 
on  the  day  after  the  nuptials,  and  she  does  not  appear  to 
have  returned  with  them  to  England.  Her  musical  skill, 
her  sweet  singing  to  her  lute,  her  inventive  talents  in  dress 
and  in  all  sorts  of  ingenious  pastimes,  and  her  vivacious 
conversation,  won  high  and  general  admiration  at  the 
French  Court.  She  ran  a  brilliant  course  of  coquetry,  but, 
nevertheless,  took  good  care  both  of  her  heart  and  her 
reputation. 

After  the  death  of  King  Louis,  and  the  return  of  his 
young  widow  to  England  as  the  Duke  of  Suffolk's  bride, 
Anne  Boleyn  reappears  as  a  member  of  the  household 
of  Queen  Claude,  the  amiable  and  prudent  wife  of  the 
chivalric  Francis  I.  Influenced  apparently  by  political 
motives,  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn  fetched  his  daughter  Anne 
back  to  England  in  the  year  1522,  and  she  was  imme- 
diately appointed  a  Maid-of-Honour  to  Queen  Catherine 
of  Arragon.  Her  attachment  and  engagement  to  Lord 
Percy,  her  indignation  against  the  King  for  breaking  their 
contract,  her  jealous  love  and  sorrow  at  Lord  Percy's  sub- 
sequent marriage  with  Lady  Mary  Talbot,  rendered  the 
next  few  years  a  period  of  acute  and  passionate  suffering. 
She  appears  to  have  withdrawn  from  Court  to  her  paternal 
home,  and  thence  to  France,  where  she  spent  four  years 
in  attendance  upon  the  French  Princess  Margaret 
Duchess  of  Alen^on,  afterwards  Queen  of  Navarre.  Ee- 
turning  a  second  time  to  England,  and  re-entering  Queen 
Catherine's  service,  ambition  took  the  place  of  blighted 


38  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

affection.  Her  versatile  mind  readily  assumed  the  pre- 
valent colour  of  the  day,  and  she  professed  Protestantism, 
accepted  the  addresses  of  King  Henry,  was  privately 
married  to  him  in  1532,  was  crowned  as  his  wife  and 
Queen  in  1533,  and  on  the  7th  of  September  in  the  same 
year  became  the  mother  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  In  acts 
of  political  circumvention,  in  the  pride  of  state,  the 
levity  of  amusement,  the  vanity  of  personal  admiration, 
and  the  exercise  of  ingenious  talents,  she  whiled  away  her 
brief  period  of  splendid  prosperity.  The  inconstancy  and 
jealousy  of  her  royal  husband  hurled  her,  as  with  a  whirl- 
wind, from  a  palace  to  a  prison.  She  was  beheaded  within 
the  precincts  of  the  Tower  of  London,  on  an  unsustained 
charge  of  unfaithfulness,  May  19,  1536. 

The  following  stanzas,  which  Eitson  conjectured  to  have 
been  written  by  her  brother,  George  Boleyn  Lord  Kochford, 
are  without  hesitation  attributed  by  Miss  Strickland  to 
Anne  Boleyn,  and  she  supposes  them  to  have  been  made 
after  sentence  of  condemnation  had  been  passed  upon 
her. 

The  letters  of  Anne  Boleyn,  as  English  compositions, 
are  of  remarkable  merit,  and  the  remonstrance  to  the 
King  is  one  of  the  most  eloquent  epistles  in  the  language ; 
but  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  other  reason  for 
assigning  the  dirge  to  her  pen  than  the  manifest  appro- 
priateness of  its  subject,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  a  poem  of 
that  period.  Probably  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  who  deeply 
sympathized  in  her  grief  and  mourned  her  fate,  was  the 
real  author.  Internal  evidence  strengthens  this  conjecture  ; 
for,  however  innocent  of  falsely-imputed  crimes,  no  poor 
creature,  in  apprehension  of  immediate  death,  would  men- 
tion her  own  spirit  as  absolutely  "guiltless  ;"  but  a  sympa- 
thizing friend,  in  bewailing  her  fate,  might  very  naturally 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  39 

be  led,  by  an  excess  of  tender  compassion,  so  to  describe 
it:— 

•'  Oh,  death !  rock  me  on  sk(  i>,  Alone,  in  prison  strange, 

Bring  on  my  quiet  rest,  I  wail  my  destiny, 

Let  pass  my  very  guiltless  ghost,  Woe  worth  the  cruel  bap  that  I 

Out  of  my  careful  breast.  Should  taste  this  misery  ! 

Ring  out  the  doleful  knell,  Farewell  my  pleasures  past, 

Let  its  sound  my  death  tell,  Welcome  my  present  pain  ! 

For  I  must  die,  j  feel  my  torments  8O  increase 

There  is  no  remedy,  That  J^  cannot  remain  . 

Sound  now  the  passing  bell, 
My  pains  who  can  express  ?  Rung  is  my  doleful  knell, 

Alas !  they  are  so  strong ;  For  its  sound  my  death  doth  tell : 

My  dolour  will  not  suffer  strength  Death  doth  draw  nigh, 

My  life  for  to  prolong.  Sound  the  knell  dolefully, 

For  now  I  die  !  ' 

Campbell  has  justly  characterized  this  composition  as 
"one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  plaintive  strains  of  our 
elder  poetry." 

Anne  Boleyn's  portrait  was  repeatedly  painted  by  Hol- 
bein and  others,  and  many  engravings  from  those  paintings 
are  enumerated  by  Granger. 

THE  DAUGHTERS  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 
Sir  Thomas  More  was  twice  married :  first,  to  Joanna 
Golt,  the  daughter  of  an  Essex  gentleman  ;  and  secondly, 
to  Alice  Middleton,  a  widow,  whose  maiden  name  was 
Grisacre.  His  son  and  three  daughters  were  born  of  the 
first  marriage,  the  second  was  childless.  The  home  of  Sir 
Thomas  and  his  happy  family  was  at  Chelsea,  and  is  shown 
by  Faulkner,*  on  the  authority  of  l)r.  King  the  antiquary, 
who  held  the  rectory  of  that  parish  for  many  years,  to 
have  been  a  large  and  commodious  mansion  opposite  to 
the  river,  and  built  by  Sir  Thomas  More  on  the  site  sub- 
sequently occupied  by  Beaufort  House.  There  Erasmus 
passed  many  happy  days,  and  there  Holbein  painted  some 
of  his  finest  pictures. 

*  Sec  lii>  •  lli>t<>r\  of  ( 'lu-lsci.'  vol.  i. 


40  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

The  daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  More  were  esteemed  the 
most  learned  and  accomplished  women  of  their  time. 
Erasmus  called  their  home  a  temple  of  the  Muses :  it  was 
also  a  temple  of  domestic  affection  and  of  true  piety. 
Margaret,  the  eldest,  was  born  about  the  year  1508.  She 
gave  early  indications  of  extraordinary  abilities,  earnest 
devotion  to  God,  and  the  most  amiable  and  affectionate 
disposition.  She  married  William  Koper,  Esq.,  of  West 
Hall,  near  Eltham,  Kent;  and  found  in  him  a  husband 
worthy  of  her  love.  She  wrote  many  Latin  epistles  and 
English  letters,  and  an  original  treatise  on  '  The  Four 
Last  Things,'  and  she  translated  the  '  Ecclesiastical  His- 
tory '  of  Eusebius  from  the  Greek  into  the  Latin  language. 
Her  father  rented  a  small  separate  house,  into  which  he 
received  poor  and  aged  persons,  whom  he  maintained  at 
his  own  expense.  To  Margaret  he  intrusted  the  daily 
oversight  of  this  house,  and  made  her  responsible  for  the 
poor  inmates  being  well  taken  care  of.  She  had  likewise 
the  gratification  of  seeing  and  partaking  in  the  distribution 
of  the  large  charities  bestowed  by  her  generous  husband, 
who  delighted  in  imitating  the  example  of  his  father  in- 
law.  She  was  the  pride  and  darling  of  both  their  hearts, 
and  was  held  in  the  highest  estimation  for  her  virtue  and 
genius  by  the  most  eminent  persons  of  her  time.  The 
part  which  she  bore  in  her  father's  happy  household,  and 
in  his  days  of  affliction,  can  never  be  forgotten  by  those 
who  have  read  the  '  Life  of  Sir  Thomas  More.'  Her 
duteous  care  is  said  by  Wood,  in  his  '  Athen.  Oxon.,'  to 
have  interred  his  mutilated  corpse  beneath  the  tomb  which 
he  had  prepared  within  the  southern  wall  of  the  chancel 
of  Chelsea  church.  She  rescued  his  venerated  head  from 
being  thrown  into  the  Thames  after  its  exposure  for  four- 
teen days  upon  a  pole  on  London  Bridge,  preserved  it  in  a 
leaden  box,  and  directed  that  it  should  finally  be  placed 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          41 

with  her  in  the  grave.  She  died  in  the  year  1544,  leaving 
five  children,  and  was  buried  in  the  vault  of  the  Koper 
family,  in  St.  Dunstan's  church,  Canterbury.  It  was  her 
lowest  praise  to  be  "  excellently  well  skilled  in  the  Greek 
and  Latin  languages."  She  is  described  by  one  of  Sir 
Thomas  More's  biographers  as  "  most  like  unto  her  father 
both  in  favour  and  wit ;''  and  as  "  a  most  rare  woman  for 
learning,  sanctity,  and  secresy." 

Her  husband,  who  survived  her  thirty-three  years,  con- 
tinued a  widower  until  his  dying  day,  honouring  her 
memory  by  a  life  devoted,  like  her  own,  to  learning, 
beneficence,  and  piety. 

Burke,  in  a  note  to  his  pedigree  of  the  Teynham  family, 
mentions  "  a  tradition  preserved  in  the  Roper  family  that 
Queen  Elizabeth  offered  a  ducal  coronet  to  Margaret 
Roper,"  which  she  refused,  as  "  a  compromise  for  what  she 
considered  the  judicial  murder  of  her  father." 

Horace  Walpole  has  alluded  to  the  circumstance  in  a 
way  that  shows  he  believed  it :  but  Margaret  Roper  died 
in  1544,  and  Queen  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne  in 
1558  ;  the  thing  was  therefore  impossible.  If  the  offer 
ever  was  made  to  her,  it  must  have  been  by  King  Henry 
VIII.,  who  died  in  1547.  It  is  by  no  means  improbable 
that  he  might,  in  a  fit  of  remorse,  plan  such  a  means  of 
fancied  compensation  ;  and  doubtless  Margaret  Roper 
would  have  refused  it  with  horror,  as  the  price  of  her 
father's  blood. 

Elizabeth,  Sir  Thomas  More's  second  daughter,  married 
the  son  and  heir  of  Sir  John  Dancy. 

Cecilia,  the  third  daughter,  married  Giles  Heron,  Esq., 
of  Shakelwell,  Middlesex. 

Both  were  remarkably  learned,  accomplished,  and  ami- 
able women. 


42  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Worthy  of  similar  commendation  was  Margaret  Gigs, 
born  in  1508,  and  brought  up  in  the  family  of  her  illus- 
trious kinsman  Sir  Thomas  More.  About  the  year  1531 
she  married  her  tutor,  Dr.  John  Clement:  she  died  at 
Mechlin,  in  Brabant,  July  6,  1570. 

The  portraits  of  these  four  eminent  women,  with  those 
of  Sir  Thomas  More,  Alicia  his  second  wife,  and  several 
other  members  of  the  family,  are  preserved  in  the  cele- 
brated picture  by  Holbein.  A  very  scarce  engraving 
from  it  is  mentioned  by  Granger  as  belonging  to  a  book 
entitled  'Tabellse  Selectae  Catherine  Patina,'  1691,  fol. ; 
and  a  copy  of  this  engraving  by  Vertue  in  Knight's  '  Life 
of  Erasmus.' 

ANNE  ASKEW. 

Anne,  daughter  of  Sir  William  Askew,  of  Kelsey, 
Lincolnshire,  was  born  about  the  year  1520.  She  received 
a  learned  education,  arid  was  unwillingly  married,  at  an 
early  age,  to  the  son  of  a  wealthy  gentleman  named  Kyme, 
the  match  having  been  arranged  by  the  fathers  without 
any  regard  to  the  inclinations  of  the  parties.  Her  conduct 
as  a  wife  was  exemplary,  and  she  solaced  herself  by  studying 
the  Holy  Scriptures.  Being  gradually  led  by  reflection 
and  prayer  to  perceive  the  errors  of  the  Komish  Church, 
she  was  cruelly  treated  by  her  bigoted  husband.  She  had 
passively  sacrificed  her  earthly  happiness  to  a  sense  of 
filial  duty,  but  she  steadfastly  refused  compliance  with  her 
husband's  prohibition  of  Protestantism,  and  persevered  in 
reading  the  Bible  and  in  worshipping  God  according  to 
her  conscience.  He  consequently  used  her  with  great 
cruelty,  and  forcibly  turned  her  out  of  doors.  She  sought 
refuge  in  London,  where  she  was  kindly  treated  by  many 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  43 

ladies  of  high  rank  wlio  professed  the  Protestant  faith.  In 
tli<  synopsis  of  Bishop  Bale's  'Examination  and  Elucida- 
tion '  (Censura  Literaria,  vol.  vi.  p.  1),  she  is  described  as 
••a  gentlewoman,  very  young,  dainty,  and  tender."  En- 
deavouring to  obtain  a  divorce  from  her  husband,  he 
revenged  himself  by  instigating  certain  priests  to  procure 
her  arrest. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Protestantism  of 
King  Henry  VIII.  consisted  chiefly  in  the  personal  assump- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  supremacy  and  in  the  abrogation  of 
papal  privileges  throughout  his  dominions.  It  was  not 
the  religious  tenets  of  the  monks,  but  their  bold  and 
obstinate  adhesion  to  the  papal  authority,  which  provoked 
the  King  to  the  general  dissolution  of  the  monasteries ; 
and  throughout  liis  arbitrary  reign  many  of  the  genuine 
doctrines  of  the  Reformation  were  publicly  repudiated  as 
heresy.  In  1539,  at  the  royal  suggestion,  an  Act  was 
passed  attaching  the  penalty  of  death  by  burning  or 
hanging  to  the  denial  of  transubstantiation,  to  the  asser- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  communion  in  both  kinds,  of  the 
unlawfulness  of  celibacy,  of  the  uselessness  of  private 
masses,  and  of  auricular  confession  as  necessary  to  salva- 
tion. Under  this  "  Bloody  Statute "  Anne  Askew  was 
arrested  and  imprisoned. 

Being  placed  upon  the  rack,  in  order  to  make  her 
betray  the  names  of  persons  holding  similar  opinions,  she 
underwent  the  utmost  extremity  of  torture  with  silent 
fortitude.  Refusing  to  recant,  she  was,  with  three  other 
sufferers,  burned  at  the  stake  in  Smithfield,  July  16th, 
1 546.  Her  claims  to  authorship  rest  upon  her  letters  and 
declarations  of  faith,  which  give  proofs  of  extraordinary 
vigour  and  acuteness  of  mind,  and  upon  some  verses, 
which  possess  peculiar  interest  as  the  oldest  metrical  corn- 


LITERAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 


position  extant  which  is  undoubtedly  known  to  be  from 
the  pen  of  an  Englishwoman. 

THE    BALLAD   WHICH   ANNE   ASKEW   MADE   AND   SUNG    WHEN    SHE 
WAS  IN  NEWGATE. 


Like  as  the  armed  knight 

Appointed  to  the  field, 
With  this  world  will  I  fight, 

And  faith  shall  be  my  shield. 
Faith  is  that  weapon  strong 

Which  will  not  fail  at  need  ; 
My  foes  therefore  among 

Therewith  will  I  proceed. 

As  it  is  had  in  strength 

And  force  of  Christ  his  way, 
It  will  prevail  at  length, 

Though  all  the  devils  say  nay. 
Faith,  of  the  fathers  old 

Obtained  right  witness, 
Which  make  me  very  bold 

To  fear  no  world's  distress. 

I  now  rejoice  in  heart, 

And  hope  bid  me  do  so, 
For  Christ  will  take  my  part, 

And  ease  me  of  my  woe. 
Thou  sayest,  Lord,  whoso  knock 

To  them  wilt  thou  attend, 
Undo,  therefore,  the  lock, 

And  thy  strong  power  send. 
More  enemies  now  I  have 

Than  hairs  upon  my  head, 
Let  them  me  not  deprave, 

£ut  fight  Thou  in  my  stead. 


On  thee  my  care  I  cast, 
For  all  their  cruel  spite, 

I  set  not  by  their  hast, 
For  Thou  art  my  delight. 

I  am  not  she  that  list 

My  anchor  to  let  fall, 
For  every  drisling  mist, 

My  ship  substantial. 
Not  oft  use  I  to  write 

In  prose  nor  yet  in  rhyme, 
Yet  will  I  show  one  sight 

That  I  saw  in  my  time. 
I  saw  a  royal  throne, 

Where  Justice  should  have  sit, 
But  in  her  stead  was  one 

Of  moody  cruel  wit. 
Absorb'd  was  righteousness, 

As  of  the  raging  flood  ; 
Satan,  in  his  excess, 

Suck'd  up  the  guiltless  blood. 
Then  thought  I,  Jesus,  Lord, 

When  Thou  shalt  judge  us  all, 
Hard  is  it  to  record 

On  these  men  what  will  fall. 
Yet,  Lord,  I  Thee  desire 

For  that  they  do  to  me 
Let  them  not  taste  the  hire 

Of  their  iniquity  ! " 


QUEEN  CATHERINE  PARR. 

Catherine  Parr  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas 
Parr,  of  Kendal,  in  Westmoreland.  The  dates  of  her  birth 
and  of  her  first  marriage  are  obscure.  Being  the  widow 
of  the  Hon.  Edward  Burgh  and  of  John  Neville  Lord 
Latimer,  about  thirty -two  years  of  age,  and  bearing  a  high 
character  for  amiability  and  prudence,  she  became  the 
sixth  wife  of  King  Henry  VIII.  on  the  12th  of  July,  1543. 


LITER  A  KY    WOMEN    OP    ENGLAND.  45 

Among  the  lands  included  in  her  royal  dower  was  the 
manor  of  Chelsea;  and  after  the  King's  decease,  which 
occurred  on  the  28th  of  January,  1547,  she  took  up  her 
abode  at  the  new  manor-house  which  he  had  built  there, 
on  a  site  a  little  to  the  eastward  of  the  ground  on  which 
some  years  afterwards  stood  Winchester  Palace.  In  the 
course  of  a  few  weeks  after  King  Henry's  death  Queen 
Catherine  married  Thomas  Lord  Seymour,  the  Lord  High 
Admiral.  She  died  on  the  5th  of  September,  1548,  at 
her  fourth  husband's  castle  of  Sudely,  in  Gloucestershire. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  woman  who  had  successfully 
accommodated  herself  to  the  various  tempers  of  three 
previous  husbands,  and  had  made  a  patient  and  placid 
wife  to  one  of  the  most  morose  and  cruel  tryants  in  the 
world,  should  have  been  undisguisedly  miserable  in  her 
last  union  with  an  ambitious,  intriguing,  and  fascinating 
nobleman. 

Probably  the  inconsistency  may  be  explained  by  the 
supposition  that  with  King  Henry  her  indignation  at  ill- 
treatment  was  suppressed  merely  by  fear  ;  while  love  for 
Lord  Seymour  exposed  her  heart  to  the  poignant  griefs  of 
despised  affection. 

Historians  are  seldom  content  with  assigning  one  suffi- 
cient cause  for  the  premature  death  of  any  eminent 
person,  and  they  have  needlessly  added  poison  to  the 
child-bed  fever  which  really  killed  Queen  Catherine  Parr. 

She  was  a  good  Latin  scholar,  and  wrote  various  letters 
and  devotional  works.  Her  *  Lamentation  of  a  Sinner 
bewailing  the  Ignorance  of  her  Blind  Life '  was  published 
in  1548.  soon  after  her  death.  In  it  she  acknowledges 
her  early  reliance  on  external  performances,  the  observ- 
ance of  fasts,  pilgrimages,  &c. ;  and  states  that  she  first 
became  acquainted  with  the  internal  and  real  power  of 


46          LITERACY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

religion  by  means  of  reading  the  Bible  and  praying  for 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  make  known  its  meaning  to  her  soul. 
She  also  explains  her  sense  of  justification  by  faith  and 
its  indissoluble  connection  with  personal  holiness.  Her 
'  Prayers  and  Meditations '  are  still  often  reprinted  and 
largely  circulated  by  the  Eeligious  Tract  Society.  Me- 
diocrity of  talent  and  sincere  piety  are  characteristics  of 
all  her  productions. 

Portraits  of  her  by  Holbein  and  Vander  Werff,  and 
several  engravings  from  them,  are  extant.  She  has  the 
most  intellectual  countenance  of  either  of  King  Henry's 
six  Queens. 

FRANCES  LADY  ABERGAVENNY. 

Frances  Manners,  according  to  Burke's  pedigree  of  the 
Abergavenny  family,  was  the  daughter  of  Thomas,  first 
Earl  of  Kutland ;  and  according  to  Burke's  pedigree  of  the 
Kutland  family,  the  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas  Manners, 
third  son  of  that  earl :  the  latter  being  apparently  the  true 
paternity.  She  married  Henry  Neville,  fourth  Lord  Aber- 
gavenny, who  died  February  10,  1587.  Some  of  her 
prayers  and  verses  were  printed  in  the  years  1577  and 
1582.  Among  the  latter  is  a  curious  hymn,  cited  by 
Mr.  Park,  in  which  the  first  letters  of  the  lines  being  read 
downwards  form  the  words  "  Frances  Abergavenny."  The 
sentiment  is  devout,  and  the  versification  not  inferior  to 
that  of  many  other  pieces  of  the  time,  but  this  acrostic  is 
utterly  devoid  of  literary  merit. 


LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  IT 


CHAPTER    III. 


A.D.    1550-1600. 

Remarks  on  the  period  —  The  Lady  Jane  Grey  —  Mary  Countess  of 
Arundel  —  Queen  Mary  Tudor  —  Mary  Roper  —  Mary  Countess  of 
Sussex  and  Arundel  —  The  Ladies  Anne,  Margaret,  and  Jane  Seymour 
—  Lady  Lumley  —  Queen  Mary  Stuart — The  four  daugh'ers  of  Sir 
Anthony  Cooke  —  Anne  Countess  of  Oxford  —  Margaret  Ascham  — 
Anne  Wheathill  —  Frances  Countess  of  Sussex. 


"  Heaven  doth  with  us  as  we  with  torches  do, 
Not  light  them  for  themselves  ;  for  if  our  virtues 
Did  not  go  forth  of  us,  'twere  all  alike 
As  if  we  had  them  not.     Spirits  are  not  finely  touch'd 
But  to  fine  issues." 

SHAKSPEARK'S  Measure  for  Measure,  act  i.,  scene  1. 


WARTON,  in  a  note  to  the  58th  section  of  his  *  History  of 
English  Poetry/  brings  various  authorities  to  prove  that  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  female  writers  of 
poetry  had  become  numerous,  and  among  them  he  quotes 
Puttenham,  who,  in  his  '  Art  of  Poesy,'  says,  "  Dark  word 
or  doubtful  speech  are  not  so  narrowly  to  be  looked  upon 
in  a  large  poem,  nor  specially  in  the  pretty  poesies  and 
devices  of  ladies  and  gentlewoman-makers,  whom  we  would 
not  have  too  precise  poets,  lest,  with  their  shrewd  wits, 
when  they  were  married  they  might  become  a  little  too 
fantastical  wives." 

The  diffusion  of  the  Bible  in  the  language  of  the  people 
had  familiarized  educated  Englishwomen  with  the  triumph- 
ant odes  of  Deborah  and  Miriam,  and  with  the  eucha- 


48  LITERARY    WOMEN  OF    ENGLAND. 

ristic  hymns  of  Hannah,  Elizabeth,  and  the  Virgin  Mary. 
The  perusal  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics  had  probably 
informed  them  of  the  existence  of  Corinna,  and  made  them 
acquainted  with  the  lyrics  of  Sappho  and  the  fame  of 
Sulpitia0  Travellers  had  related  to  them  the  names  and 
works  of  the  female  poets  of  Italy.  But  the  inspired 
matrons  and  maidens  of  Israel,  the  syrens  of  Greece,  and 
the  poetesses  of  the  South,  failed  to  awaken  the  true  poetic 
spirit  in  the  literary  women  of  England.  Among  the 
highly  cultivated  Englishwomen  of  this  period  were 
several  of  undoubted  genius ;  but  there  is  a  youth  of  litera- 
ture as  well  as  of  human  life,  and  it  is  as  invariably  con- 
ventional, or  rash,  in  its  productions,  which  are  always 
deficient  either  in  freshness  or  comprehensiveness.  Young 
writers,  and  writers  in  an  early  stage  of  national  literature, 
never  know  how  to  exert  their  powers  to  the  best  effect: 
Conscious  of  inexperience  and  of  inexpertness,  they  in 
general  timidly  adhere  to  accepted  propositions,  and  almost 
fear  even  to  vary  the  forms  of  their  original  announce- 
ment. Sometimes,  impelled  by  real  emotion,  the  en- 
kindling spirit  irradiating  the  page  gives  bright  indications 
of  mental  power.  But  repeated  efforts  are  required  in 
order  to  rise  steadily  above  the  interrupting  damps  of 
doubt,  and  to  avoid  disturbing  contact  with  the  straitened 
mazes  of  custom,  so  that  native  feeling  and  original 
thought  may,  be  brought  to  bear  upon  other  minds  with 
the  accurate  and  assured  result  of  an  electric  telegraph. 

At  the  period  under  review  some  highly  gifted  English- 
men had  already  attained  the  literary  use  of  the  vernacular 
tongue,  and  that  wondrous  power  of  giving  to  words  the 
vitality  and  light  of  genius  which  Englishwomen  slowly 
acquired  in  the  course  of  many  subsequent  generations ; 
for  only  in  the  trivialities  of  practical  life,  and  in  the  in- 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          49 

stinctivo  promptings  of  feeling,  are  they  more  prescient 
than  their  masters. 

The  royal  and  noble  female  scholars  of  the  present  period 
wore  distinguished  in  general  by  that  passive  faculty  of 
reception  which  is  usually  termed  capacity :  many  of  them 
also  possessed  active  ability  of  a  superior  kind ;  and  some 
of  them  were  endowed  with  faculties  of  the  very  highest 
order.  In  this  fresh  spring-time  of  divine  and  human 
knowledge,  educated  minds,  however,  were  braced  up 
firmly  and  zealously,  intent  to  run  the  race  of  life  with  the 
vigour  of  athletae,  whether  for  the  fading  wreaths  of  earth 
or  the  everlasting  crowns  of  immortality.  Among  them 
some  were  excellent,  and  few  inert,  either  in  faculties 
or  will. 

THE  LADY  JANE  GREY. 

There  is  not  a  more  touching  episode  in  the  history  of 
any  country  than  the  life  of  Lady  Jane  Grey.  She  was 
born  in  the  year  1537 ;  her  parents  were  Henry  Grey, 
Marquis  of  Dorset,  afterwards  Duke  of  Suffolk,  and  the 
Lady  Frances  Brandon;  on  whose  children  the  succes- 
sion to  the  English  throne,  next  after  the  personal  de- 
scendants of  King  Henry  VIII.,  was  entailed  by  the  will 
of  that  monarch,  expressly  authorised  by  Act  of  Parliament. 

The  education  of  Lady  Jane  Grey  was  principally  con- 
ducted by  John  Aylmer,  afterwards  Bishop  of  London,  and 
never  had  any  man  a  more  apt  or  docile  pupil :  her  dispo- 
sition was  mild  and  unassuming,  her  apprehension  quick, 
her  memory  tenacious,  and  her  judgment  comprehensive, 
clear,  and  strong.  A  letter  written  by  Lady  Jane,  and  a 
fac-simile  of  her  handwriting,  when  only  eleven  years  old, 
are  given  in  the  third  volume  of*  Mrs.  Everett  Green's 
'  Letters.'  Her  early  days  were  spent  chiefly  under  her 

E 


50          LITEKAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

parents'  roof  at  Bradgate,  and  partly  with  the  pious  Queen 
Catherine  Parr  at  Chelsea,  where,  worshipping  in  the 
church  which  was  once  attended  by  Sir  Thomas  More  and 
his  happy  family,  her  noble  heart  might  probably  have 
been  stirred  up  to  emulate  the  gentle  heroism  of  the  ad- 
mirable Margaret  Koper.  Jane  Grey's  attachment  to  the 
Protestant  faith,  derived  from  Bishop  Aylmer,  cherished 
by  Queen  Catherine,  and  deeply  rooted  by  her  own 
thoughtful  choice,  no  subsequent  trials  or  temptations 
could  either  loosen  or  destroy. 

On  the  visit  of  Mary,  the  Queen  Dowager  of  Scotland, 
to  Greenwich,  where  King  Edward  VI.  held  his  court, 
Lady  Jane  made  her  first  public  appearance  in  the  train 
of  her  mother,  then  Duchess  of  Suffolk.  She  afterwards 
became  the  guest  of  the  Princess  Mary,  who  is  said  from 
that  time  to  have  entertained  a  prejudice  against  her,  in 
consequence  of  her  undisguised  perception  of  the  errors  of 
Eomanism. 

Lady  Jane  Grey's  pretensions  to  the  Crown,  though 
properly  remote,  rendered  her,  almost  from  infancy,  an 
object  of  political  intrigue,  and,  in  May,  1553,  she  was 
given  in  marriage  to  Lord  Guilford  Dudley,  fourth  son  of 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  a  youth  of  her  own  age. 
On  the  6th  of  July  following,  King  Edward  died,  and 
Lady  Jane  was  immediately  made  acquainted  with  the 
plan  which  had  been  prepared  for  her  accession.  Compre- 
hending fully  all  the  advantages  and  all  the  dangers  at- 
tendant upon  this  measure,  she  'deliberately  and  solemnly 
refused  her  assent ;  but,  overborne  by  the  solicitations  of 
her  husband,  and  by  the  authority  of  his  parents  and  her 
own,  she  ultimately  yielded  up  herself  the  conscious  victim 
of  their  ambition.  Sir  Harris  Nicolas  *  suggests  that  a 

*  'Life  of  Lady  Jane  Grey.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  .~>1 

sense  of  the  perilous  position  in  which  her  nearest  kinsmen 
liM<l  placed  themselves  to  effect  her  advancement  probably 
wrought  upon  her  feelings  to  avert,  or  at  least  to  delay, 
Mary  Tudor's  vengeance.  However,  it  is  certain  that,  in- 
stead of  aspiring  to  the  Crown,  "  she  was,"  in  the  words  of 
her  father-in-law,  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  "  by  en- 
ticement and  force  made  to  accept  it."  Her  own  touching 
narrative  of  the  circumstances,  translated  from  the  '  Istoria 
Ecclesiastica  della  Bivoluzion  d'  Inghilterra J  of  Pollini,  is 
given  by  Mrs.  Everett  Green,  in  the  '  Letters  of  Koyal 
and  Illustrious  Ladies,'  vol.  iii.,  pp.  272-9. 

On  the  10th  of  July,  1553,  Queen  Jane  was  proclaimed ; 
on  the  19th  she  found  herself  divested  of  all  the  attributes 
of  royalty — a  solitary  prisoner  in  the  Tower.  Her  father 
was  arrested,  but  liberated  in  a  few  days,  having  ob- 
viously been  the  dupe  of  the  Dudleys.  On  the  22nd  of 
August,  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  Sir  John  Gates, 
and  Sir  Thomas  Palmer  were  beheaded  for  high  treason. 

On  the  3rd  of  October,  Mary  Tudor  was  crowned  Queen 
of  England,  and  on*  the  13th  of  November  her  lovely  rival, 
with  Lord  Guilford  Dudley  and  two  of  his  brothers,  were 
put  upon  their  trial  for  high  treason.  They  all  pleaded 
guilty,  and  received  sentence  of  death ;  but,  the  rigour  of 
their  treatment  being  subsequently  mitigated,  hopes  were 
entertained  that  their  youthful  lives  would  ultimately  be 
spared. 

On  the  12th  of  January,  1554,  a  treaty  of  marriage  was 
signed  between  Queen  Mary  and  King  Philip  of  Spain, 
and  caused  general  discontent  throughout  the  English  na- 
tion, and  more  especially  among  the  Protestants.  Dis- 
turbances consequently  took  place  in  several  counties. 
Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  the  younger  and  other  men  of  in- 

E2 


52          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

fluence  conspiring  to  raise  the  people,  induced  the  Duke 
of  Suffolk  to  aid  the  insurrection,  and,  on  its  prompt  sup- 
pression, he  and  the  other  leaders  were  consigned  to 
prison.  This  imprudence  accelerated  the  fate  of  Lady 
Jane,  and  sealed  her  father's  doom. 

The  morning  of  the  12th  of  February,  1554,  having 
been  appointed  for  the  execution  of  Lord  Guilford  and  his 
wife,  he  sent  to  her  a  message  of  urgent  affection,  request- 
ing a  last  interview,  which  their  custodian  had  not  refused. 
Lady  Jane  denied  herself  this  melancholy  indulgence, 
judging  that  the  agitation  of  such  a  parting  would  tend  to 
shake  their  firmness,  and,  in  reply,  suggesting  the  con- 
soling thought  that  their  separation  would  be  but  for  a 
moment,  and  followed  by  a  union  exempt  from  change 
and  sorrow.  Passing  under  her  window,  he  looked  up, 
and  she  gave  him  a  last  encouraging  signal.  A  few 
minutes  afterwards,  being  herself  led  forth  to  the  Tower 
Green,  she  met  the  car  which  contained  his  bloody  re- 
mains. Grafton  remarks  that  "  so  miserable  a  sight  was 
to  her  a  double  sorrow  and  grief;"  and  another  witness 
quaintly  adds,  "the  spectacle  a  little  startled  her,  and 
many  tears  were  seen  to  descend  and  fall  upon  her 
cheeks."  Lord  Guilford  suffered  with  dignity ;  having 
first  knelt  in  prayer,  and  then  asked  for  the  prayers  of  the 
spectators,  he  calmly  laid  his  head  upon  the  block.  Lady 
Jane  approached  the  scaffold  with  perfect  self-composure, 
mounted  it  with  grave  alacrity,  addressed  the  assembled 
people  with  gentle  eloquence ;  admitting  "  her  crime 
against  the  Queen,"  but  declaring  her  innocence  of  "either 
wishing  or  procuring  the  royal  dignity."  She  called  upon 
them  to  bear  witness  "that  she  died  a  true  Christian 
woman,  and  that  she  expected  salvation  only  through  the 


LITERACY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  53 

mercy  of  God  in  the  merits  of  the  blood  of  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ.  She  confessed  that  when  she  did  know  the  word 
of  God  she  neglected  it  and  loved  herself,  and  therefore 
the  punishment  had  happily  and  worthily  happened  to 
her  for  her  sins ;  she  thanked  God  for  His  goodness,  for 
giving  her  time  to  repent,  and  concluded  her  speech  by 
requesting  them  to  assist  her  with  their  prayers."  She 
then  knelt  down,  and  devoutly  repeated  aloud  the  51st 
Psalm,  arose  and  prepared  her  person  for  the  stroke, 
covered  her  eyes  with  a  bandage,  knelt  again,  felt  for  the 
block,  and,  quietly  laying  her  head  upon  it,  said,  "  Lord, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit !"  The  place  where 
her  remains  and  those  of  her  husband  were  interred  is 
unknown. 

On  the  23rd  of  the  same  month  the  Duke  of  Suffolk 
suffered  decapitation. 

The  literary  remains  of  Lady  Jane  consist  of  a  few 
Latin  epistles,  some  letters  in  English  to  her  near  rela- 
tions and  friends,  and  a  few  lines  of  Latin  verse.  There  is 
also  extant  a  memorandum  entitled  'Notes  of  a  Con- 
ference Dialogue-wise/  made  and  signed  by  herself,  four 
days  before  her  death,  for  Feckenham,  the  priest,  who 
had  vainly  endeavoured  by  argument  to  prevail  upon  her 
to  renounce  the  Protestant  faith. 

The  verses  were  scratched  upon  her  prison-wall : — 

i. 

"  Non  aliena  putes  homini  qu»  obtingere  possunt, 
Sors  hodiema  mihi,  eras  erit  ilia  tibi." 

This  distich  has  been  variously  translated,  but  never 
more  suitably  than  as  follows  : — 

"  Think  not,  oh  mortal  vainly  gay, 

That  thou  from  human  woes  art  free, 
The  bitter  cup  I  chink  to-day 
To-inorrow  may  bo  drunk  by  thee." 


54          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Lady  Jane  probably  derived  the  thought  from  the  Son 
of  Sirach's  "  Yesterday  for  thee,  and  to-day  for  me." 

2. 

"Deo  juvante  nil  nocet  livor  malus, 
Et  non  juvante,  nil  juvat  labor  gravis  : 
Post  tenebras,  spero  lucem." 

These  have  been  well  rendered  by — 

"  Harmless  all  malice,  if  our  God  be  nigh  ; 
Fruitless  all  pains,  if  he  his  help  deny  ; 
Patient  I  pass  these  gloomy  hours  away, 
And  wait  the  morning  of  eternal  day." 

A  good  specimen  of  her  English  prose,  though  altered 
to  the  third  person,  is  preserved  by  Heylin ;  it  occurs  in 
her  reply  to  the  first  offer  of  the  Crown : — "  That  the 
laws  of  the  kingdom  and  natural  right  standing  for  the 
king's  sister,  she  would  beware,  of  burdening  her  weak 
conscience  with  a  yoke  which  did  not  belong  to  it ;  that 
she  understood  the  infamy  of  those  who  had  permitted  the 
violation  of  right  to  gain  a  sceptre  ;  that  it  were  to  mock 
God  and  deride  justice  to  scruple  at  the  stealing  of  a  shil- 
ling and  not  at  the  usurpation  of  a  Crown,"  &c. 

Here  also  may  be  discerned  the  rectitude  of  her  princi- 
ples and  the  soundness  of  her  understanding. 

The  uses  of  adversity  she  referred  to  in  her  dying 
speech,  and  they  appear  to  have  done,  in  the  seven  months 
of  her  imprisonment,  the  work  of  seventy  years.  In  her 
devout  heart  the  placid  "  Our  Father  "  of  childhood  had 
soon  changed  into  the  "  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner" 
of  youth,  and  that  into  the  "  favour  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  love  of  God,  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy 
Spirit "  of  pious  maturity — sure  precursors  of  immortal 
hallelujahs. 

A  very  lovely  engraving  of  her  is  prefixed  to  the  last 
edition  of  Sir  Harris  Nicolas's  '  Memoir,'  another  may  be 


LITERARY   \VOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  55 

I'm  md  in  Horace  Walpole's  *  Catalogue/  and  Granger  men- 
tion- two — one  in  the  * Heroologia,'  and  one  in  Larrey's 
*  History/  from  a  portrait  by  Vander  Werff. 

MARY  COUNTESS  OF  ARUNDEL. 

Mary,  daughter  and  co-heir  of  Henry  Fitzalan,  Earl  of 
Arundel,  and  first  wife  of  Thomas  Howard,  fourth  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  is  set  in  Walpole's  '  Catalogue '  as  the  compiler 
of  *  Certain  Ingenious  Sentences/  and  author  of  a  Latin 
dedication  of  them  to  her  father.  She  died  in  1557. 

QUEEN  MARY  TUDOR. 

Mary,  daughter  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  and  of  Catherine 
of  Arragon,  was  born  February  8,  1515.  The  sorrows  of 
her  injured  mother  appear  to  have  given  a  melancholy  cast 
to  a  disposition  naturally  reserved,  and  to  have  tinctured 
with  bigotry  a  mind  tenacious  of  early  impressions,  inca- 
pable of  independent  action,  and  biassed  by  few  but  strongly 
concentrated  affections.  She  was  educated  by  a  succes- 
sion of  learned  tutors,  and  Erasmus  has  commended  the 
style  of  her  Latin  epistles.  Her  English  translation  of 
the  Paraphrase  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John  is 
praised  by  Udall,  in  his  preface  to  "  the  first  volume  of 
the  Paraphrase  upon  the  New  Testament,"  London,  1548, 
folio,  in  which  it  was  included.  Addressing  the  Queen 
Dowager,  Catherine  Parr,  in  this  preface,  Udall  refers  to 
"  the  great  number  of  noblewomen  at  that  time  in  Eng- 
land, not  only  given  to  the  study  of  human  sciences  and 
strange  tongues,  but  also  so  thoroughly  expert  in  Holy 
Scriptures,  that  they  were  able  to  compare  with  the  best 
writers,  as  well  in  inditing  and  penning  of  godly  and  fruit- 
ful treatises  to  the  instruction  and  edifying  of  realms  in 


56          LITEEARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND, 

the  knowledge  of  God,  as  also  in  translating  good  books 
out  of  Latin  or  Greek  into  English,  for  the  use  and  com- 
modity of  such  as  are  rude  and  ignorant  of  the  said 
tongues."  * 

Mary  was  crowned  Queen  of  England,  November  30, 
1553.  Soon  afterwards,  the  book  before  alluded  to,  and  all 
others  tending  to  promote  the  Keformation,  were  called 
in  by  royal  proclamation.  On  the  25th  July,  1554,  she 
was  married  to  King  Philip  of  Spain,  and  on  the  17th 
November,  1558,  she  died. 

Tutors  must  be  dull  indeed  when  they  allow  that  their 
royal  pupils  are  dunces :  but  Queen  Mary  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  deficient  in  that  ordinary  measure  of  capacity 
which  suffices  for  the  reception  of  carefully  instilled  know- 
ledge. Many  of  her  letters  in  Latin,  Spanish,  French, 
and  English,  are  extant. 

Queen  Mary  augmented  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
which,  in  1546,  her  father,  King  Henry  VIII.  had  founded. 
She  also  built  the  Public  Schools  at  Oxford.  No  less  than 
ten  engravings  of  this  Queen,  taken  from  various  portraits, 
are  described  by  Granger. 

MARY  ROPER. 

Mary,  the  youngest  daughter  of  Margaret  Roper,  received 
a  learned  education,  and  in  virtues,  talents,  and  acquire- 
ments, proved  herself  worthy  of  her  illustrious  parentage. 
She  was  one  of  the  gentlewomen  of  Queen  Mary  Tudor's 
privy  chamber.  She  was  twice  married ;  first,  to  Mr. 
Stephen  Clarke,  and  secondly,  to  Mr.  James  Basset. 
Roger  Ascham  mentions  her  as  "an  eminent  ornament  of 
her  sex,  and  of  Queen  Mary's  court."  She  translated  from 
the  Latin  into  English  part  of  Sir  Thomas  M  ore's  *  Expo- 

*  Ballard. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  57 

sition  of  the  Passion  of  our  Saviour,'  and  Mrs.  Roper's 
version  of  the  '  Church  History  of  Eusebius.' 

MARY  COUNTESS  OF  SUSSEX  AND  ARUNDEL. 
Mary,  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas  Arundel,  of  Llauherne, 
Cornwall,  and  of  his  second  wife  Catherine,  daughter  of 
Sir  Thomas  Granville,  of  Stowe,  Knight,  was  twice  married : 
first,  to  Robert  Ratcliffe,  Earl  of  Sussex,  who  died  in 
1566,  and,  secondly,  to  Henry  Fitzalan,  Earl  of  Arundel. 
She  translated  from  English  into  Latin,  *  The  Wise  Sayings 
and  Eminent  Deeds  of  the  Emperor  Severus;'  from  Greek 
into  Latin,  *  Select  Sentences  of  the  Seven  Wise  Grecian 
Philosophers ; '  and  made  a  '  Collection  of  Similes  from 
Plato,  Aristotle,  Seneca,  and  other  Philosophers/  These 
works  were  dedicated  to  her  father,  and  remain  in  manu- 
script, having  been  merely  exercises  made  under  a  tutor. 

THE  LADIES  ANNE,  MARGARET,  AND  JANE  SEYMOUR. 
The  Ladies  Anne,  Margaret,  and  Jane  Seymour,  daughters 
of  Edward  Duke  of  Somerset,  are  mentioned  by  Park,  on 
the  authority  of  Ballard  and  Brindley,  as  authors  of  a 
*  Century  of  Latin  Distichs  upon  the  Death  of  Queen 
Margaret  of  Navarre,'  which  obtained  sufficient  celebrity 
to  be  translated  soon  afterwards  into  Greek,  Italian,  and 
French,  under  the  title  of  '  Le  Tombeau  de  Marguerite 
de  Valois,  Royne  de  Navarre,'  and  were  printed  at  Paris 
in  1551.  A  letter  to  King  Edward  VI.,  translated  from 
the  original  Latin  of  Lady  Margaret  and  Lady  Jane, 
appears  at  page  199  of  the  third  volume  of  '  Letters  of 
Royal  and  Illustrious  Ladies.' 

JANE  LADY  LUMLEY. 

Jane,  or  Joanna,  daughter  and  co-heir  of  Henry  Fitzalan, 
Earl  of  Arundel,  and  first  wife  of  John  Lord  Lumley,  trans- 


58          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

lated  from  Greek  into  Latin  several  '  Orations '  of  Isocrates, 
and  from  Greek  into  English  the  '  Iphigenia '  of  Euripides. 
The  prefixed  argument  to  her  version  of  this  tragedy  is 
given  by  Park,  and  its  style  is  good,  clear,  and  vigorous. 
The  children  of  Lord  and  Lady  Lumley  having  died  young, 
the  celebrated  Lumley  Library,  after  its  worthy  collectors 
had  also  passed  away,  was  sold  to  King  James  I.  Lady 
Lumley  died,  March  9,  1577.  Her  husband  long  survived 
her,  and  took  a  second  wife. 

QUEEN  MARY  STUART. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  the  only  surviving  child  of  King 
James  V.  of  Scotland,  and  of  his  wife  the  Princess  Mary 
of  Lorraine,  was  born  on  the  8th  of  December,  1542.  Her 
charms,  her  accomplishments,  and  her  misfortunes  have 
furnished  unfailing  themes  of  historical  discussion  ever 
since  the  fatal  8th  of  February,  1587,  when  she  expired  at 
Fotheringay,  under  the  axe  of  the  executioner.  Her 
musical  skill,  her  elegant  dancing,  her  graceful  horseman- 
ship, her  cleverness  in  needlework,  and  her  talents  for 
languages  and  literature  are  renowned.  Her  letters  are 
voluminous,  her  remaining  verses  few,  and  chiefly  in  the 
French  language.  Park  gives  two  of  these  relics,  but 
intimates  a  doubt  whether  the  first  can  be  accepted  as 
genuine : — 

i. 

"  Qui  suis-je,  helas  ?  et  de  quoi  sert  la  vie  ? 
J'en  suis  fors  qu'un  corps  prive  de  cceur  ; 
Un  ombre  vayn,  im  objet  de  rnalheur, 
Qui  n'a  plus  rien  que  de  mourir  en  vie. 
Plus  ne  me  portez  O  e'nnmis  d'envie, 
Qui  n'a  plus  1'esprit  a  la  grandeur  ; 
J'ai  consomme  d'excessive  douleur, 
Votre  vie  en  bref  de  voir  assouvie ; 
Et  vous  amis  qui  m'avez  tenu  cliere 
Souvenez-vous'que  sans  cosur  et  sans  sante, 
Je  ne  ssaurois  aucun  bon  couvre  faire." 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          59 

The  second  is  in  Latin  :— - 

"O  Domino  Dt  us  !  .<]><  nivi  in  te : 
O  care  mi  Jeau  !  nunc  libera  me. 
In  dura  catena,  in  misera  poona,  desidero  to  ; 
Langnendo,  gemendo,  et  genu  flectendo, 
Adoro,  imploro,  ut  liberes  me ! " 

Mr.  Seward,  from  whose  *  Anecdotes'  the  verses  were 
derived,  gives  the  following  specimen  of  the  Queen's  con- 
versation : — "  When  one  of  the  Cecil  family  was  speaking 
of  the  wisdom  of  his  sovereign  Queen  Elizabeth,  Mary 
stopped  him  short  by  saying,  i  Seigneur  Chevalier,  ne  me 
parlez  jamais  de  la  sagesse  d'une  femme ;  je  connais  bien 
mon  sexe;  la  plus  sage  de  nous  toutes  n'est  qu'un  peu 
moins  sotte  que  les  autres.' "  This,  in  English  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  would  signify — Never  talk  to  me, 
Sir  Knight,  of  the  wisdom  of  a  woman ;  I  know  my  sex 
right  well,  and  the  very  wisest  of  us  all  is  but  a  little  less 
silly  than  the  rest. 

Of  her  it  is  related,  that  when  walking  in  a  procession 
at  Paris,  a  woman  pressed  through  the  crowd  to  touch  her, 
and  excused  the  intrusive  rudeness  by  declaring  that  she 
merely  wished  to  satisfy  herself  whether  beauty  so  angelic 
could  belong  to  flesh  and  blood.  Granger,  who  gives 
this  anecdote,  describes  thirty-two  engravings,  from  por- 
t raits  by  Janet,  Zucchero,  Oliver,  Vander  Werff,  and  other 
artists.  The  remarkable  resemblance  of  some  of  her 
portraits  to  those  of  her  father  affords  a  test  of  their  being 
genuine. 

THE  DAUGHTERS  OF  SIR  ANTHONY  COOKE. 
Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  of  Giddy  Hall,  Essex,  and  his  wife 
Anne,  daughter  of  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  of  Milton, 
were  the  parents  of  four  of  the  most  remarkable  women 
that  England  ever  produced.  Their  daughters  were 
all  gifted  with  a  sound  understanding  and  fine  natural 


60          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

abilities :  they  all  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  a  learned 
education,  and  they  all  distinguished  themselves  in  after- 
life by  the  useful  exercise  of  their  several  talents. 

Mildred,  the  eldest,  was  born  in  1526.  Under  the  in- 
struction of  Mr.  Lawrence,  the  eminent  Greek  scholar, 
she  became  celebrated  for  her  knowledge  of  ecclesiastical 
lore,  and  read  the  works  of  Basil,  Cyril,  Chrysostom,  and 
the  other  Fathers  in  their  original  language.  She  made  a 
translation  into  English  of  a  passage  from  St.  Chrysostom  ; 
and  when  she  presented  a  large  Hebrew  Bible  to  the  library 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  accompanied  it  with  a 
Greek  epistle  from  herself.  At  twenty  years  of  age,  she 
married  Sir  William  Cecil,  afterwards  the  great  Lord 
Burleigh  and  Lord  High  Treasurer  of  England.  Lady 
Burleigh  died  April  4,  1589,  and  was  sumptuously  buried 
in  Westminster  Abbey.  Her  unostentatious  acts  of  charity 
were,  after  her  decease,  first  discovered  by  her  husband, 
who  recorded  them  to  soothe  his  sorrow  for  her  loss. 

Anne,  the  second  daughter,  was  born  about  the  year 
1528.  She  married  Sir  Nicolas  Bacon,  the  Lord  Keeper, 
and  was  the  mother  of  two  sons — Anthony  Bacon,  a  man  of 
remarkable  talents  and  acquirements;  and  Francis  Vis- 
count St.  Albans,  the  great  Lord  Bacon.  Posterity  is  her 
debtor  for  having  early  cultivated  the  mind  of  this  illus- 
trious philosopher.  Her  own  generation  was  greatly  bene- 
fited in  many  ways  by  Lady  Bacon.  She  was  governess 
to  the  pious  and  intelligent  young  King  Edward  VI.  She 
translated  twenty-five  sermons  by  Bernadine  Oehine,  from 
the  Italian  into  English ;  and  to  her  belongs  the  enviable 
distinction  of  being  the  very  first  woman  who  wrote  in 
English  for  publication;  and  with  a  direct  intention  to 
supply  a  popular  requirement.  Bishop  Jewell's '  Apology,' 
composed  in  Latin,  had  acquired  great  fame  among  the 


LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND.  Cl 

learned,  but  was  inaccessible  to  others ;  and  many  of  the 
people  who  could  read  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular 
tongue,  and  took  an  eager  interest  in  religious  controversy, 
expressed  their  desire  to  become  acquainted  with  that 
treatise,  which  they  knew  had  won  great  celebrity  among 
the  champions  of  the  Protestant  faith. 

Lady  Bacon  translated  the  *  Apology '  into  English,  and 
sent  a  copy  of  her  translation  to  the  author,  accompanied 
by  an  epistle  in  Greek.  She  also  sent  a  copy  to  Arch- 
bishop Parker,  who  caused  it  to  be  printed  and  published 
under  the  sanction  of  his  authority,  in  1564,  rendering 
thereby  immense  assistance  to  the  cause  of  the  Refor- 
mation. Never  were  talents  and  erudition  more  worthily 
used  than  by  this  estimable  woman. 

She  died  at  Gorhambury,  in  the  year  1600,  and  was 
buried  in  St.  Michael's  Church,  at  St.  Albans,  where, 
twenty-six  years  afterwards,  the  most  illustrious  of  her 
sons  was,  by  his  own  especial  direction,  interred  near  her 
grave. 

Elizabeth,  the  third  daughter  of  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  was 
born  about  the  year  1529.  Her  first  husband  was  Sir 
Thomas  Hobby,  of  Bisham,  in  Berkshire,  who  died  when 
ambassador  at  Paris,  July  13,  1566,  leaving  his  widow 
with  four  children.  Her  second  husband  was  John  Lord 
Russell  eldest  son  of  Francis,  second  Earl  of  Bedford,  by 
whom  she  had  a«on,  who  died  young,  and  two  daughters, 
one  of  them  being  the  Maid-of-Honour,  buried  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  who  died  from  the  prick  of  a  needle. 
Lady  Russell  wrote  epitaphs  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  English 
for  her  lost  relations  and  friends,  and  letters  in  English ; 
one  of  the  latter,  addressed  to  her  brother-in-law,  Lord 
Burleigh,  shows  her  to  have  been  a  woman  of  great  sense, 
rigorous  justice,  and  severe  temper.  To  her  attaches  the 


62  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

terrible  tradition  of  having  beaten  her  youngest  son' 
Hobby,  to  death,  for  blotting  his  copy-book. 

She  translated  from  the  French  into  English  a  tract 
entitled,  *  A  Way  of  Eeconciliation  of  a  good  and  learned 
man  touching  the  true  Nature  and  Substance  of  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament.'  It  was  printed  in 
London,  in  1605,  and  dedicated  to  her  last  surviving 
daughter,  Lady  Somerset. 

Lady  Russell  was  buried  at  Bisham,  Berks. 

Catherine,  fourth  daughter  of  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  was 
born  about  the  year  1530.  She  married  Mr.  afterwards 
Sir  Henry  Killigrew,  of  Cornwall.  She  was  famous  in  her 
day  for  her  skill  in  the  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin  lan- 
guages, and  for  her  Greek  and  Latin  verses.  On  her  own 
approaching  death  she  wrote  the  following : — 

"  Dormio  mine  Domino,  Domini  virtute  resurgani ; 

Et  (rwTTjpa  meum  carne  videbo  meS,. 
Mortua  ne  dicar,  fruitur  pars  altera  Christo  : 
Et  surgam  capiti,  tempore,  tota,  meo." 

Of  which  Ballard  gives  this  English  translation : — 

"  To  God  I  sleep,  but  I  in  God  shall  rise  ; 

And  in  the  flesh  my  Lord  and  Saviour  see, 
Call  me  not  dead,  my  soul  to  Christ  is  fled, 
And  soon  both  soul  and  body  joined  shall  be." 

Various  eulogistic  epitaphs  lead  to  the  inference  that  she 
died  early,  and  that  her  piety  was  as  eminent  as  her 
mental  endowments.  She  was  buried  in  the  chancel  of 
St.  Thomas's  Church,  Yintry  Ward,  London. 

ANNE  COUNTESS  OF  OXFORD. 

To  this  band  of  brilliants  belongs  as  a  pendant,  Anne 
Cecil,  eldest  daughter  of  Lord  Burleigh  and  of  his  second 
wife,  Mildred  Cooke.  She  married  Edward  Vere,  Earl  of 
Oxford,  died  June  6th,  1588,  and  was  buried  in  West- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND.  03 

minster  Abbey.  The  Countess  contributed  four  epitaph B 
in  Kn^lish  verse,  written  on  the  death  of  her  son,  to  1li<> 
•  I  >iana'  of  John  Southern.  The  only  one  quoted  by  Park 
is  affected  and  awkward  in  style,  heathen  in  sentiment, 
and  utterly  heartless.  Her  lustre  appears  to  have  been 
not  inherent,  but  derived  from  her  illustrious  parents, 
kinswomen,  and  husband. 

MARGARET  ASCHAM. 

Margaret  How  was  a  wealthy  gentlewoman,  who,  in  the 
year  1554,  became  the  wife  of  the  eminent  scholar  Roger 
Ascham.  He  died  in  1568,  and  posterity  are  indebted  to 
her  for  the  preservation  of  his  celebrated  work,  'The 
Schoolmaster/  which  she  published  in  1570,  with  a  dedi- 
cation to  Sir  William  Cecil,  afterwards  Lord  Burleigh, 
written  by  herself.  The  date  of  her  death  is  uncertain ; 
she  is  supposed  to  have  shared  her  husband's  grave  in 
St.  Sepulchre's  Church,  London. 

ANNE  WHEATHILL. 

In  the  '  Censura  Literaria,'  vol.  x.  p.  109,  the  following 
title  is  given  of  a  work  now  scarce : — "  A  Handfull  of 
wholesom  (though  homeley)  Hearbs,  gathered  out  of  the 
goodly  garden  of  God's  most  Holy  Word ;  for  the  common 
benefit  and  comfortable  exercise  of  all  such  as  are  devoutly 
disposed.  Collected  and  dedicated  to  all  religious  Ladies, 
Gentlewomen,  and  others;  by  Anne  Wheathill,  Gentle- 
woman. Imprinted  at  London  by  H.  Denham,  1584." 

It  is  quaintly  inscribed : — "  To  all  Ladies,  Gentlewomen, 
and  others,  which  love  true  religion  and  virtue,  and  be 
devoutly  disposed:  grace,  mercy,  and  peace,  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

"  For  a  testimony  to  all  the  world,  how  I  have  and  do 
(I  praise  God)  bestow  the  precious  treasure  of  time,  even 


64  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

now  in  the  state  of  niy  virginity  or  maidenhood ;  lo  here  I 
dedicate  to  all  good  ladies,  gentlewomen,  and  others,  who 
have  a  desire  to  invocate  and  call  upon  the  name  of  the 
Lord,  a  small  handfull  of  grose  hearbs ;  which  I  have  pre- 
sumed to  gather  out  of  the  garden  of  God's  most  holy 
word.  Not  that  there  is  any  unpureness  therein,  but  that, 
(peradventure)  my  rudeness  may  be  found  to  have  plucked 
them  up  unreverentle  and  without  zeal." 

Who  or  what  Anne  Wheathill  was,  the  writer  has  vainly 
tried  to  ascertain. 

Sir  Eichard  and  Dame  Elizabeth  Wheathell,  and  their 
son  Sir  Kobert  Wheathell,  are  mentioned  in  the  second 
and  third  volumes  of  the  *  Letters  of  Koyal  and  Illustrious 
Ladies ;'  and  several  epistles  written  by  Lady  Wheathell 
are  printed  there,  in  which  she  bitterly  complains  to  Lord 
Cromwell  of  her  son,  with  whom,  being  then  a  widow,  she 
was  at  variance.  Probably  Anne  Wheathill  was  a  sister  of 
Sir  Kobert. 

FRANCES  SYDNEY,  Countess  of  Sussex,  by  her  last  will 
and  testament,  founded  Sydney  Sussex  College,  Cam- 
bridge, in  the  year  1598. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


A.D.    1600-1650. 

Queen  Elizabeth  —  Elizabeth  Grymston  —  Elizabeth  Jane  Leon— The 
Lady  Elizabeth  Carew  —  Mary  Countess  of  Pembroke  —  The  Lady 
Mary  Wroth  —  Elizabeth  Countess  of  Lincoln  —  Anne  Countess  of 
Anmdel. 


"  If  they  have  nothing  else,  the  least  gifted  of  them  have  at  least  some- 
thing of  the  freshness  and  airiness  of  that  balmy  morn,  some  tones^caaglit 
from  their  greater  contemporaries,  some  echoes  of  the  spirit  of  music  that 
thru  filled  the  universal  air."— Craik's  'Sketches  of  the  History  of  Lite- 
rature and  Learning  in  England,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  127. 


QUEEN  ELIZABETH. 

ELIZABETH  TUDOR,  the  only  child  of  King  Henry  VIII. 
and  Queen  Anne  Boleyn,  was  born  on  the  7th  of  September, 
1533,  crowned  Queen  of  England,  January  15,  1558,  and 
died  March  24,  1603.  Elaborately  educated,  both  by 
appointed  teachers  and  by  the  events  and  circumstances 
of  life,  she  failed  so  to  profit  by  them  as  to  become  either 
an  amiable  woman  or  a  good  Christian.  The  arrogant 
sagacity  of  the  Tudor,  and  the  coquettish  levity  of  the 
Boleyn,  were  to  the  last  conjoined  and  unitedly  predo- 
minant in  her  character,  unsoftened  and  unhallowed  by 
tune  or  piety :  but  her  invariable  and  perfect  self-posses- 
sion in  the  most  painful  vicissitudes  and  the  most  sudden 
emergencies  commands  respect.  How  much  tutors  had  to 
do  with  the  boasted  performances  of  erudite  young  ladies 
is  made  evident  by  a  brief  survey  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 

F 


DO  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

studies :  she,  under  the  guidance  of  the  learned  William 
Grindal,  translated,  when  only  eleven  years  of  age,  from 
French  verse  into  English  prose,  '  The  Mirror,  or  Glass 
for  a  Sinful  Soul;'  and  at  twelve,  from  English  into 
Latin,  French,  and  Italian,  Queen  Catherine  Parr's  col- 
lection of  '  Prayers  and  Meditations ; '  and  into  English 
from  the  French,  *  The  Meditations  of  Margaret  Queen  of 
Navarre.'  William  Grindal  dying,  the  Princess  Elizabeth, 
after  her  father's  death,  chose  for  her  preceptor  the  cele- 
brated Koger  Ascham ;  and,  having  already  become  con- 
versant with  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  zealously 
pursued  the  study  of  their  literature.  She  also  devoted 
much  time  to  the  works  of  Melanchthon  and  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  She  spoke  five  languages.  She  read  Isocrates 
and  Sophocles  in  the  original  Greek,  translated  the  Hiero 
and  Siinonides  from  Xenophon,  and  wrote  a  commentary 
upon  Plato.  Besides  these  scholastic  exercises,  her  ora- 
tions, speeches,  and  letters  afford  proofs  of  her  extraor- 
dinary knowledge  and  sagacity.  She  acquired  in  her  day 
a  high  reputation  as  a  poet ;  and  Puttenham,  whose  '  Art 
of  English  Poesy '  was  published  in  1589,  after  extolling 
Sir  Philip  Sydney,  Chaloner,  Spenser,  Sir  Walter  Kaleigh, 
and  others,  adds :  "  But  last  in  Recital  and  first  in  degree 
is  the  Queen,  our  Sovereign  Lady,  whose  learned,  delicate, 
noble  muse  easily  surmounteth  all  the  rest  that  have 
written  before  her  time  or  since  for  sense,  sweetness,  and 
subtilty,  be  it  in  the  ode,  elegy,  epigram,  or  any  other 
kind  of  poem,  heroic  or  lyric,  wherein  it  shall  please  her 
pen,  even  by  so  much  odds  as  her  own  excellent  estate  and 
degree  exceedeth  all  the  rest  of  her  most  humble  vassals." 
In  the  true  spirit  of  a  crouching  vassal  this  egregious 
flattery  was  certainly  administered ;  and  it  seems  to  have 
been  a  tacit  law  of  the  Elizabethan  Court,  that  in  all 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OP   ENGLAND.  157 

things  practised  by  the  Queen  her  supreme  and  excellent 
I  >iv-ominence  must  be  acknowledged. 

Edward  Bolton,  a  critic  of  English  literature,  although 
not  setting  a  good  example  of  English  style,  writing  in  or 
about  the  year  1616,  says :  "  Queen  Elizabeth's  verses,  those 
which  I  have  seen  and  read,  extant  in  the  elegant,  witty, 
and  artificial  book  of  the  '  Art  of  English  Poetry,'  the  work, 
as  the  fame  is,  of  one  of  her  gentlemen  pensioners,  Putten- 
ham,  are  princely  as  her  prose"  *  This  is  ambiguous  praise, 
and  may  perhaps  be  construed  to  convey  a  covert  censure. 

When  a  state-prisoner  at  Woodstock,  during  her  sister's 
reign,  Elizabeth  wrote  the  following  verses  with  charcoal 
on  a  shutter : — 

"  Oh  Fortune,  how  thy  restless  wavering  state 
Hath  fraught  with  cares  my  troubled  wit ! 
Witness  this  present  prison,  whither  Fate 

Could  bear  me,  and  the  joys  I  quit. 
Thou  causedest  the  guilty  to  be  loosed 
From  bands  wherein  are  innocents  enclosed, 
Causing  the  guiltless  to  be  straight  reserved, 
And  freeing  those  that  death  hath  well  deserved. 
But  by  her  envy  can  be  nothing  wrought, 
So  God  send  to  my  foes  all  they  have  thought. 
A.D.  MDLV.  ELIZABETH,  Prisoner." t 

Ttie  tone  is  heathen  and  the  spirit  malevolent,  but  the 
language  and  versification^are  not  below  mediocrity.  The 
chief  fault  lies  in  the  change  of  Fortune's  person  in  the 
last  couplet  from  the  second  of  the  singular  to  the  posses- 
sive pronoun.  The  line — 

"  Ajid  freeing  those  that  death  hath  well  deserved," 

looks  at  first  sight  like  bad  grammar;  but,  supposing 
Death  a  personification,  it  may  be  understood  that  he 
hath  deserved  to  have  those  guilty  persons,  who  would 

*  Warton's  '  History  of  English  Poetry,'  vol.  iii.  sect.  li. 
t  Bishop  Percy's  'Reliques,'  vol.  ii.,  p.  134,  ed.  1841. 

F   2 


68          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

seem  more  naturally  to  form  the  nominative  case,  and 
require  the  substitution  of  have. 

Bishop  Percy  *  gives  a  distich  of  the  Queen's  preserved 
by  Puttenham  : — 

"  Never  think  you  Fortune  can  bear  the  sway 
Where  Virtue's  force  can  cause  her  to  delay." 

Virtue,  with  Queen  Elizabeth,  was  a  synonym  of  Intre- 
pidity. 

Park,  in  his  additions  to  Walpole's  *  Catalogue,'  cites 
a  rebus  made  by  Queen  Elizabeth  upon  a  Mr.  Noel : — 

"  The  word  of  denial  and  letter  of  fifty 
Is  that  gentleman's  name  that  will  never  be  thrifty." 

This  for  an  offhand  couplet  is  not  amiss. 

It  is  a  humiliating  fact  for  the  grave  consideration  of 
female  aspirants  to  social  and  mental  equality  with  men, 
that  in  the  days  of  Spenser  and  Shakspeare  the  best 
poetess  in  England  was  reputed  to  be  the  highly-educated 
Queen  Elizabeth.  The  fulsome  ascriptions  of  contempo- 
rary praise  were  merely  the  reaction  of  her  personal 
assumption.  Bolton's  remark  especially  applies  to  the 
following  'Sonnet,'  which  Puttenham  informs  us  was 
written  by  Her  Majesty  to  intimate  her  knowledge  of  the 
faction  among  her  courtiers  in  favour  of  the  imprisoned 
Queen  of  Scots : — 

"  The  doubt  of  future  foes 
Exiles  my  present  joy  ; 
And  wit  me  warns  to  shun  such  snares 
As  threaten  mine  annoy. 

For  falsehood  now  doth  flow, 

And  subjects'  faith  doth  ebb, 
Which  would  not  be  if  reason  ruled, 
Or  wisdom  wove  the  web. 


See  his  '  Reliques.' 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          <i(J 

But  cl.nhU  »>f  joy  untried 

Do  cloak  aspiring  minds. 
Which  turn  to  rain  of  late  repent 

By  course  of  changed  winds. 
The  top  of  hope  supposed 
The  root  of  ruth  will  be, 
And  fruitless  all  their  graffed  guiles, 

As  shortly  all  shall  see. 
Then  dazzled  eyes  with  pride, 

Which  great  ambition  blinds, 
Shall  be  unsealed  by  worthy  wights, 

Whose  foresight  falsehood  finds. 
The  Daughter  of  Debate, 

That  discord  aye  doth  sow, 
Shall  reap  no  gain  where  former  rule 

Hath  taught  still  peace  to  grow. 
No  foreign  banished  wight 

Shall  anchor  in  this  port : 
Our  realm  it  brooks  no  stranger  force, 

Let  them  elsewhere  resort. 
Our  rusty  sword  with  rest 

Shall  first  his  edge  employ 
To  poll  the  tops  that  seek  such  change 

Or  gape  for  such  like  joy.*  1569." 

This  is  the  "  ditty  of  Her  Majesty's  own  making,"  which 
Master  Puttenham  praises  as  "  passing  sweet  and  harmo- 
nical."  The  ferocious  threat  which  it  utters  was  duly 
executed  upon  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  other  partisans 
of  the  Queen  of  Scots. 

Queen  Elizabeth's  elaborate  duplicity  is  completely 
revealed  by  comparing  Puttenham's  explanation  of  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  written  with  the  extract  from  thte 
'Nugse  Antiquae'  of  Sir  John  Harrington,  which  shows 
that  the  crafty  Queen  had  contrived  that  Lady  Willoughby 
should  "  covertly  get  it  on  Her  Majesty's  tablet,"  and  thus 
make  the  ditty  known  to  the  parties  for  whom  it  was 
intended. 

By  the  impulsion  of  a  resolute  will  inferior  faculties 
may  often  be  made  to  accomplish  great  things,  and  to 
produce  an  exaggerated  impression  of  intellectual  power, 

*  Bishop  Percy's  '  RulitjucB,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  21.3-17. 


70          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

just  as  a  strong  and  heavy  hammer  may  drive  a  weak  and 
crooked  tin-tack  to  its  home,  and  clinch  it  firmly.  The 
literary  productions  of  Queen  Elizabeth  indicate  that  her 
abilities  were  thus  enforced,  and  that  they  were  in  their 
nature  rather  practical  than  contemplative.  Her  letters 
indicate  mental  cultivation,  great  astuteness,  and  a  peculiar 
power  of  adapting  her  style  to  suit  her  purposes. 

Queen  Elizabeth  was  a  benefactress  of  Jesus  College, 
Oxford,  and  its  nominal  founder.  Hugh  Price,  a  native 
of  Brecon,  who  graduated  at  Oxford  as  D.C.L.  in  the  year 
1525,  became  subsequently  a  prebendary  of  Eochester 
Cathedral,  and  treasurer  of  the  diocese  of  St.  David's ;  and 
desiring  in  his  old  age  to  lay  out  his  property  for  the  good 
of  his  fellow-countrymen,  the  natives  of  Wales,  presented 
a  petition  to  Her  Majesty,  that  she  would  be  pleased  to 
found  a  college  at  Oxford  for  their  especial  use,  and  would 
allow  him  to  endow  it.  This  request  was  readily  granted ; 
Dr.  Price  gave  his  Breconshire  estates  and  money  for 
accumulation ;  the  Queen  allowed  timber  from  the  royal 
forests  of  Shotover  and  Stowe  to  be  used  for  the  collegiate 
buildings,  and  thus  cheaply  acquired  the  fame  which  truly  be- 
longs to  the  generous  and  unostentatious  Welshman.  In  the 
year  1560  Queen  Elizabeth  founded  Westminster  School; 
and  in  the  year  1591  she  founded  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 

Granger  describes  more  than  thirty-nine  engravings 
from  portraits  by  Ant.  More,  Hillyard,  Isaac  Oliver,  J. 
Oliver,  Vander  Werff,  and  others,  and  several  historical 
pieces,  in  which  this  Queen  is  represented  as  the  chief 
personage.  There  is  something  truly  regal  in  her  aspect 
and  mien  ;  and,  notwithstanding  a  disproportionately  high 
nose,  she  must  undoubtedly  have  been  very  handsome. 

ELIZABETH  GRYMESTON. 
Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Martin  Bernye,  of  Gunston,  Nor- 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  71 

folk,  married  Christopher,  youngest  son  of  Thomas  Grymes- 
ton,  of  Grymeston,  in  the  county  of  York,  who  shared  the 
same  ancestry  as  the  Grimstons,  Earls  of  Verulam.  For 
the  instruction  of  a  son,  she  compiled  in  her  last  illness  a 
work,  entitled,  *  Miscellanea,  Meditations,  Memoratives. 
By  Elizabeth  Grymeston.  Non  est  rectum  quod  a  Deo 
non  est  directum.'  London,  1604. 

ELIZABETH  JANE  LEON. 

Elizabeth  Jane  Weston,  of  Button,  in  the  county  of 
Surrey,  spent  the  greater  part  of  her  life  in  Germany, 
where  she  married  a  gentleman  named  John  Leon,  who 
held  an  employment  at  the  Emperor's  court.  Few  par- 
ticulars of  her  life  are  known.  She  attained  to  high 
celebrity  as  a  linguist  and  Latin  poet,  and  her  collected 
works  were  published  at  Prague  in  the  year  1606. 

THE  LADY  ELIZABETH  CAREW. 

Whether  Lady  Elizabeth  Carew  was  the  wife  of  Sir  Henry 
Carew,  or  a  daughter  of  George  Carew,  Earl  of  Totness,  or 
who  she  was,  neither  *  Burke's  Peerage  and  Baronetage ' 
for  1859,  nor  '  Burke's  Extinct  Baronetcies/  nor  any  other 
book  at  present  within  reach  of  the  writer  affords  satis- 
factory information.  Neither  Walpole  nor  Park  record 
her  name,  but  she  is  mentioned  by  Mr.  Robert  Chambers, 
in  his  *  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  as  the  supposed 
author  of  the  tragedy  of  '  Mariam/  which  was  published  in 
1613.  The  following  stanzas  have  great  merit : — 

PART  OF  THE  CHORUS  IN  THE  FOURTH  ACT  OF  'MARIAM  THE  FAIR 
QUEEN  OF  JEWRY,'  BY  LADY   ELIZABETH  CAREW. 

"  The  fairest  action  of  our  human  life 

Is  scorning  to  revenge  an  injury  ; 
For  who  forgives  without  a  further  strife 

His  adversary's  heart  to  him  doth  tie. 
And  'tis  a  firmer  conquest,  truly  said, 
To  win  the  heart,  than  overthrow  the  head. 


72  LITEKAEY   WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

If  we  a  worthy  enemy  do  find, 

To  yield  to  worth,  it  must  be  nobly  done  ; 

But  if  of  baser  metal  be  his  mind, 
In  base  revenge  there  is  no  honour  won. 

Who  would  a  worthy  courage  overthrow  ? 

And  who  would  wrestle  with  a  worthless  foe  ? 

We  say  our  hearts  are  great  and  cannot  yield  ; 

Because  they  cannot  yield  it  proves  them  poor  ; 
Great  hearts  are  tasked  beyond  their  power  but  seld, 

The  weakest  lion  will  the  loudest  roar. 
Truth's  school  for  certain  doth  this  same  allow, 
High-heartedness  doth  sometimes  teach  to  bow. 

A  noble  heart  doth  teach  a  virtuous  scorn  ; 

To  scorn  to  owe  a  duty  overlong  ; 
To  scorn  to  be  for  benefits  forborne ; 

To  scorn  to  lie,  to  scorn  to  do  a  wrong  ; 
To  scorn  to  bear  an  injury  in  mind  ; 
To  scorn  a  free-born  heart  slave-like  to  bind. 

But  if  for  wrongs  we  needs  revenge  must  have, 
Then  be  our  vengeance  of  the  noblest  kind  ; 

Do  we  his  body  from  our  fury  save, 

And  let  our  hate  prevail  against  his  mind. 

What  can  'gainst  him  a  greater  vengeance  be, 

Than  make  his  foe  more  worthy  far  than  he  ?  " 

The  '  Censura  Literaria,'  vol.  i.  p.  153,  confutes  Oldys's 
suggestion  that  the  author  of  '  Mariam,  the  Fair  Queen  of 
Jewry,'  was  the  wife  of  Sir  Henry  Carey,  to  whom  Davies, 
of  Hereford,  dedicated  his  '  Muses'  Sacrifice/  1612  ;  but  in 
vol.  vi.  p.  171,  on  further  consideration,  adopts  that  sup- 
position, and  states  that  she  was  probably  the  daughter  of 
Chief  Baron  Tanfield,  and  wife  of  that  Sir  Henry  Carey 
who,  in  1620,  was  created  Viscount  Falkland.  If  so,  she 
was  the  mother  of  the  renowned  Lucius  Carey,  second 
Lord  Falkland,  who  fell  at  the  battle  of  Newbury,  Sep- 
tember 20,  1643 ;  of  Lawrence  Carey,  who  fell  in  battle 
against  the  Irish  in  1542 ;  and  of  Anne  wife  of  James 
second  Earl  of  Home. 

Although  the  word  "  Carew "  is  now  pronounced  with 
the  accent  on  the  second  syllable,  it  was  probably  accented 
on  the  first  in  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  times.  Carew  Castle 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          73 

in  Pembrokeshire,  is  still  locally  pronounced  Carey,  the 
N\Vl>li  name  being  Caerau,  which  signifies  "  fortified  walls." 
Caeru  is  the  verb  to  "  wall  or  fortify."  * 

MARY  COUNTESS  OF  PEMBROKE. 

Mary  Sydney  was  the  daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Sydney. 
Lord  President  of  Wales  and  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland,  and 
of  his  wife,  the  Lady  Mary  Dudley,  eldest  daughter  of 
John  Duke  of  Northumberland,  and  sister  of  Lord  Guil- 
ford  Dudley,  of  Ambrose  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  of  Kobert 
Earl  of  Leicester. 

Mary  Sydney's  eldest  brother  was  the  admirable  Sir 
Philip,  whose  intellectual  pursuits  she  shared,  and  for 
whom  she  cherished  the  most  tender  affection.  She  had 
three  sisters,  and  two  younger  brothers,  Sir  Robert  and 
Sir  Thomas.  Sir  Robert,  having  done  good  services  to  his 
Sovereign  and  to  the  State,  and  being  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  men  of  his  time,  was,  some  years  after  the 
death  of  his  maternal  uncle  and  godfather,  created  Earl  of 
Leicester.! 

In  the  year  1576,  she  became  the  third  wife  of  Henry 
Herbert,  second  Earl  of  Pembroke.  They  had  two  sons, 
who  successively  inherited  the  earldom.  Her  husband 
died  January  19,  1601.  The  countess  died  September  25, 
1621,  at  her  house  in  Aldersgate-street,  London,  and  was 
buried  in  the  chancel  of  Salisbury  Cathedral. 

She  translated  from  the  original  French  Philip  Mornay's 
*  Discourse  of  Life  and  Death,'  and  '  The  Tragedy  of  An- 
tony;' the  former  in  May,  1590,  and  the  latter  in  the 
November  of  the  same  year.  Both  these  translations  were 
published  during  her  life.  She  assisted  Sir  Philip  Sydney 

*  See  Spurrell's  or  any  other  Welsh  Dictionary. 

t  See  Collins's  '  Memoirs  of  the  Syclneys,'  pp.  90-97. 


74          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

in  his  version  of  the  Psalms,  wrote  *  A  Pastoral  Dialogue  in 
Praise  of  Astrea '  (Queen  Elizabeth),  which  was  published 
in  Davison's  '  Poetical  Khapsody,'  1602;  and  other  pieces, 
of  which  the  Elegy  on  her  favourite  brother's  death  is  the 
most  remarkable.  He  was  killed  at  Zutphen  in  1585. 

In  the  Preface  to  his  celebrated  pastoral  Sir  Philip 
dedicates  it  to  her  as  to  "a  principal  ornament  of  the 
family  of  the  Sydney s,"  and  the  name  he  gave  it — <  The 
Countess  of  Pembroke's  Arcadia' — is  her  imperishable 
monument.  It  was  probably  thus  designated  by  way  of  con- 
tradistinction from  the  Arcadia  of  the  Italian  poet  Sanna- 
zaro,  which  in  sweetness  and  languid  grace  it  evidently 
resembles.  The  chorus  to  the  tragedy  of  '  Antonius/  and 
the  <  Dialogue  between  Two  Shepherds,'  from  the  '  Astrea/ 
given  in  Park's  Walpole's  '  Catalogue/  indicate  a  highly 
cultivated  and  vigorous  mind,  and  great  skill  in  versifi- 
cation. 

Her  merits  are  eulogized  by  Daniel  in  his  '  Delia/  in 
the  *  Astrophel '  of  Spenser,  and  in  the  '  Epitaph '  by  Ben 
Jonson. 

Spenser,  after  thirty-five  stanzas  of  monody  on  Sir  Philip 
Sydney,  thus  introduces,  in  his  thirty-sixth,  the  elegy 
written  by  Lady  Pembroke : — 

"  But  first  his  sister,  that  Clarinda  hight, 

That  gentlest  shepherdess  that  lives  this  day, 

And  most  resembling,  both  in  shape  and  sprite, 
Her  brother  dear,  began  this  doleful  lay. 

Which,  lest  I  mar  the  sweetness  of  the  verse, 

In  sort  as  she  it  sung,  I  will  rehearse." 

The  Arcadian  style  of  the  composition  accords  with  the 
taste  of  the  deceased,  and  is  well  sustained ;  but  it  mars  the 
genuine  utterance  of  sisterly  affection  and  of  exalted  faith, 
and  hope,  and  love,  by  the  adoption  of  artificial  circum- 
stances and  heathen  accessories. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  75 

In  (lowing  sweetness,  in  delicacy  and  elegance,  both  of 
thought  and  expression,  this  elegy  is  worthy  of  its  place ; 
engrafted,  like  a  white  rose,  among  the  deeply-tinted  and 
odorous  flowers  of  Spenser's  genius. 

"  Ay  me !  to  whom  shall  I  my  case  complain, 

That  may  compassion  my  impatient  grief? 
Or  where  shall  I  unfold  my  inward  p;iin, 

That  my  enriven  heart  may  find  relief? 
Shall  I  unto  the  heavenly  powers  it  show  ? 
Or  unto  earthly  men  that  dwell  below  ? 
To  heavens  ?  ah  they,  alas !  the  authors  were, 

And  workers  of  my  unremedied  woe  ; 
For  they  foresee  what  to  us  happens  here, 

And  they  foresaw,  yet  suffered  this  be  so. 
From  them  comes  good,  from  them  comes  also  ill, 
That  which  they  made,  who  can  them  warn  to  spill  ? 
To  men  ?  ah  they,  alas  !  like  wretched  be, 

And  subject  to  the  heavens'  ordinance, 
Bound  to  abide  whatever  they  devise  ; 

Their  best  redress  is  their  best  sufferance. 
How  then  can  they,  like  wretched,  comfort  me  ? 
The  which  no  less  need  comforted  to  be. 
Then  to  myself  will  I  my  sorrow  mourn, 

Sith  none  alive  like  sorrowful  remains, 
And  to  myself  my  plaints  shall  back  return, 

To  pay  their  usury  with  double  pains. 
The  woods,  the  hills,  the  rivers  shall  resound 
The  mournful  accent  of  my  sorrow's  ground. 
Woods,  hills,  and  rivers  now  are  desolate, 

Sith  he  is  gone  the  which  them  all  did  grace, 
And  all  the  fields  do  wail  their  widowed  state, 

Sith  death  their  fairest  flower  did  late  deface. 
The  fairest  flower  in  field  that  ever  grew 
Was  Astrophel ;  that  was  we  all  may  rue. 
What  cruel  hand  of  cursed  foe  unknown 

Hath  cropt  the  stalk  which  bore  so  fair  a  flower. 
Untimely  cropt,  before  it  well  were  grown, 

And  clean  defaced  in  untimely  hour. 
Great  loss  to  all  that  ever  him  did  see, 
Great  loss  to  all,  but  greatest  loss  to  me. 
Break  now  your  girlonds,  Oh  ye  shepherds'  lasses, 

Sith  the  fair  flower  wich  them  adorn 'd  is  gone. 
The  flower  which  them  adorned  is  gone  to  ashes. 

Never  again  let  lass  put  girlond  on. 
Instead  of  girlond,  wear  sad  cypress  now, 
And  bitter  elder,  broken  from  the  bough. 


76  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Ne  ever  sing  the  love  layes  wich  he  made. 

Who  ever  made  such  layes  of  love  as  he  ? 
Ne  ever  read  the  riddles  wich  he  said 

Unto  your  selves,  to  make  you  merry  glee. 
Your  merry  glee  is  now  laid  all  abed, 
Your  merry-maker  now,  alas,  is  dead. 
Death,  the  devourer  of  all  world's  delight, 

Hath  robbed  you,  and  reft  from  me  my  joy. 
Both  you  and  me,  and  all  the  world  he  quite 

Hath  robb'd  of  joyance,  and  left  sad  annoy. 
Joy  of  the  world  and  shepherds'  pride  was  he, 
Shepherds  hope  never  like  again  to  see. 
Oh,  death,  that  hath  us  of  such  riches  reft, 

Tell  us,  at  least,  what  hast  thou  with  it  done  ? 
What  is  become  of  him  whose  flower  here  left 

Is  but  the  shadow  of  his  likeness  gone  ? 
Scarce  like  the  shadow  of  that  which  he  was  ; 
Nought  like,  but  that  he  like  a  shade  did  pass. 
But  that  immortal  spirit,  which  was  deckt 

With  all  the  dowries  of  celestial  grace  ; 
By  sovereign  choice  from  th'  heavenly  quires  select, 

And  lineally  derived  from  angels'  race  ; 
Oh  !  what  is  now  of  it  become  aread  : 
Ay,  me  !  can  so  divine  a  thing  be  dead  ? 
Ah,  no  !  it  is  not  dead,  ne  can  it  die, 

But  lives  for  aye,  in  blissful  paradise  ; 
Where,  like  a  new-born  babe,  it  soft  doth  lie 

In  bed  of  lilies,  wrapped  in  tender  wise, 
And  compast  all  about  with  roses  sweet, 
And  dainty  violets  from  head  to  feet. 
There  thousand  birds,  all  of  celestial  brood, 

To  him  do  sweetly  carol  day  and  night ; 
And  with  strange  notes,  of  him  well  understood, 

Lull  him  asleep  in  angel-like  delight ; 
Whilst  in  sweet  dream  to  him  presented  be 
Immortal  beauties,  which  no  eye  may  see. 
But  he  them  sees,  and  takes  exceeding  pleasure 

Of  their  divine  aspects,  appearing  plain, 
And  kindling  love  in  him  above  all  measure  ; 

Sweet  love,  still  joyous,  never  feeling  pain. 
For  what  so  goodly  form  he  there  doth  see, 
He  may  enjoy,  from  jealous  rancor  free. 
There  liveth  he  in  everlasting  bliss, 

Sweet  spirit !  never  fearing  more  to  die  ; 
Ne  dreading  harm  from  any  foe  of  his  ; 

Ne  fearing  savage  beasts'  more  cruelty  ; 
Whilst  we  hear  wretches  wail  his  private  lack, 
And  with  vain  vows  do  often  call  him  back. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 


77 


15u1  liv.-  Hum  tln-iv  still  happy,  liappy  spirit  ! 

And  give  us  leave  thee  here  thus  to  lament : 
Not  thee,  that  doest  thy  heaven's  joy  inherit, 

But  our  own  selves,  who  here  in  dole  are  dm  if. 
Thus  do  we  weep  and  wail,  and  wear  our  eyes, 
Mourniitg  in  others  our  own  miseries." 

No  impartial  critic,  who  compares  this  elegy  with  tho 
\ .  i-sos  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  can  for  an  instant  hesitate  in 
;  i  \\arding  the  palm  of  victory  to  Lady  Pembroke. 

Ben  Jonson's  Epitaph  upon  the  Countess  of  Pembroke 
has  acquired  perhaps  a  higher  reputation  than  it  de- 
serves : — 

"  Underneath  this  sable  herse, 
Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse  ; 
Sydney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother ; 
Death,  ere  thou  hast  killed  another, 
Fair,  and  learned,  and  good  as  she, 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee  ! 
Marble  piles  let  no  man  raise 
To  her  name  for  after  days  ; 
Some  kind  woman,  born  as  she, 
Reading  this,  like  Niobe 
Shall  turn  marble,  and  become 
Both  her  mourner  and  her  tomb." 

Of  these  twelve  lines  it  may  be  observed,  that  the  two 
first  make  a  false  assertion,  for  Lady  Pembroke  was  not 
in  any  sense  "  the  subject  of  all  verse." 

The  third  line  justly  recounts  it  as  a  privilege  that  she 
was  "  Sydney's  sister ;"  but  the  fact  that  she  was  "  Pem- 
broke's mother"  tended  neither  to  her  happiness  when 
living,  nor  to  her  honour  when  dead.  The  reason  assigned 
in  the  six  closing  lines  why  no  "  marble  piles  "  should  be 
raised  to  her  name  is  extravagantly  absurd ;  and  the  real 
merit  of  the  epitaph  dwells  exclusively  in  the  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  lines,  which  are  of  exquisite  beauty  : — 

"  Death  !  ere  thou  hast  killed  another, 
Fair,  and  learned,  and  good  as  she, 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee." 

Granger  mentions  two  engravings  of  her ;  in  one  of  them 


78  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

she  is  represented  with  a  Psalter  in  her  hand.  There  is 
one,  apparently  taken  from  a  portrait  painted  after  she  had 
passed  the  prime  of  life,  in  Horace  Walpole's  'Catalogue.' 

THE  LADY  MARY  WROTH. 

Alluding  to  the  sixteen  sonnets  addressed  by  Chapman 
"  to  the  chief  nobility,"  Warton  remarks,  in  a  note,*  "  Lady 
Mary  Wroth,  here  mentioned,  wife  of  Sir  Robert  Wroth, 
was  much  courted  by  the  wits  of  this  age.  She  wrote  a 
romance  called  '  Urania,'  in  imitation  of  Sir  Philip  Sydney's 
'  Arcadia ;'  see  Jonson's  '  Epigr.'  103, 105."  It  would  appear 
from  the  concluding  references,  that  they  were  the  source 
from  whence  Warton  derived  his  knowledge  of  Lady  Mary 
Wroth  and  her  production.  In  a  note  to  the  previous 
section,  he  mentions  a  Sir  Thomas  Wroth,  Knight,  as  the 
translator  of  the  second  part  of  Virgil's  '  ^Eneid,'  April  4, 
1620. 

Lady  Mary  Wroth  is  not  mentioned  by  Walpole,  Park, 
or  Granger.  Ballard  in  the  preface  to  his  '  Memoirs  of 
British  Ladies,'  mentions  Lady  Mary  Neville,  Lady  Anne 
Southwell,  Lady  Honor  Hay,  Lady  Mary  Wroth,  and 
others,  as  persons  of  distinguished  parts  and  learning,  of 
whom  he  has  been  able  to  collect  little  else  but  that  bare 
fact.  Burke's  '  Book  of  Extinct  Baronetcies '  gives  the  pedi- 
gree of  the  Wroths  of  Blenden  Hall,  Kent,  only  from  1666 
to  1722,  naming  the  first  baronet  as  the  descendant  of  an 
ancient  family.  To  look  for  one  particular  Lady  Mary 
among  the  daughters  of  peers  seemed  hopeless  labour,  but 
research  with  another  object  has  happily  guided  the 
writer  to  the  parents  of  Lady  Mary  Wroth.  She  was  the 
eldest  daughter  of  Eobert  Sydney,  first  Earl  of  Leicester,! 

*  '  History  of  English  Poetry,'  vol.  iii.  sect.  lix. 

f  See  '  Memoirs  of  the  Syclneys,'  by  Arthur  Collins,  vol.  i.  p.  120. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 


79 


brother  and  heir  to  the  celebrated  Sir  Philip  Sydney :  her 
mother,  his  first  wife,  was  Barbara,  only  daughter  and  heir 
of  John  Gamage,  Esq.,  a  Glamorganshire  gentleman. 
Lady  Mary  had  seven  sisters  and  four  brothers:  of  the 
latter,  the  youngest  succeeded  his  father  as  second  Earl  of 
Leicester  of  that  family.  She  was  married  at  Penshurst 
on  the  16th  of  September,  1602,  to  Sir  Robert  Wroth, 
Knight,  of  Durants,  in  the  parishes  of  Enfield  and  Ed- 
monton, in  the  county  of  Middlesex,  and  of  Loughton  Hall 
in  Essex.  The  military  captains  under  her  father's  com- 
mand in  the  Netherlands  testified  their  respect  and  admi- 
ration towards  her  on  this  occasion  by  subscribing  200?. 
to  buy  "  a  chain  of  pearl  "  for  the  bride,*  or  to  be  otherwise 
disposed  of  at  her  pleasure.  Sir  William  Browne,  writing 
to  her  father  from  Flushing,  October  19, 1604,  says  :  "  We 
have  all  received,  by  Josias,  my  Lady  Wroth's  remembrance 
of  very  fair  gloves."  Her  son  Robert  Wroth  is  subse- 
quently mentioned  in  one  of  Lord  Leicester's  letters,  t  It 
is  to  be  regretted  that  so  meagre  an  account  is  all  that  can 
be  collected  from  the  published  records  of  Penshurst.  The 
marriage  of  her  great-granddaughter,  an  heiress,  conveyed 
the  Essex  estates  of  the  Wroths  into  the  family  of  the 
Zuleisteins  Earls  of  Rochford. 

Lady  Mary's  attention  was  probably  directed  in  early 
youth  to  the  works  of  her  celebrated  uncle  Sir  Philip 
Sydney,  and  of  her  aunt  Mary  Countess  of  Pembroke,  who 
was  probably  her  godmother.  The  date  of  her  death  has 
not  been  ascertained.  She  is  identified  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  mistake  by  the  mention  made  in  the  Sydney 
Memoirs  of  Ben  Jonson's  Epigrams  in  praise  of  her 

*  •  Sydney  Letters  and  Memorials  of  State,'  vol.  ii.  p.  305. 
t  Mention  of  the  Wroths  is  made  in  the  same  volume,  pp.  82,  89,  309, 
and  352. 


80  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

husband   and   herself.      A   Sir   Thomas   Wroth  was   her 
grandson. 

ELIZABETH  COUNTESS  OF  LINCOLN. 

Elizabeth,  daughter  and  coheir  of  Sir  Henry  Knevet,  of 
Charlton,  Wiltshire,  was  married  to  Thomas  Clinton,  third 
Earl  of  Lincoln.  She  had  eighteen  children,  and  on  the 
strength  of  this  experience  wrote  a  book  entitled  '  The 
Countess  of  Lincoln's  Nursery.'  It  was  first  printed  in 
1621,  and  again  in  1622  and  in  1628.  The  date  of  her 
death  is  uncertain.  The  Earl,  her  husband,  died  in  1618. 

ANNE  COUNTESS  OF  ARUNDEL. 

Anne,  sister  and  coheir  of  Thomas  last  Lord  Dacre, 
married  Philip  Fitzalan,  Earl  of  Arundel,  who  died  a 
prisoner  in  the  Tower  in  1595.  She  wrote  many  letters  to 
her  family  in  what  the  first  literary  Mr.  Lodge  terms  "  the 
best  style  of  that  time ;"  and  some  verses  on  the  death  of 
her  lord,  which  apparently  formed  part  of  a  long  poem. 
Lady  Arundel  died  April  30,  1630. 

In  the  year  1613,  Dorothy,  daughter  of  Sir  William 
Petre,  and  widow7  of  Nicholas  Wadham,  Esq.,  of  Merefield, 
Somersetshire,  founded  Wadham  College,  Oxford,  in  com- 
pliance with  the  last  will  and  testament  of  her  husband. 
Granger  mentions  a  mezzotinto  engraving  of  her  by  Faber. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          M 


CHAPTER    V. 


A.D.  1650-1G75. 

lieinarks  on  the  period  1650-75  —  Elizabeth  Countess  of  Kent  —  Elizabeth 
Countess  of  .  Bridgwater  —  Catherine  Philips  —  Lucy  Hutchinson  — 
Mar.u'aret  Duchess  of  Newcastle  —  Anne  Countess  of  Dorset,  Pembroke, 
and  Montgomery. 


"  Tlie  writers  of  this  and  the  succeeding  generation  understood  their 
own  character  better  than  it  has  been  understood  by  their  successors ; 
they  called  themselves  wits,  instead  of  poets,  and  wits  they  were — the 
difference  is  not  in  degree  but  in  kind."  —  SOUTHEY  :  Preface  to  '  Spe- 
cimens of  Later  English  Poets.' 


IN  the  period  now  under  review,  instruction  in  the  dead 
languages  had  ceased  to  be  deemed  an  essential  part  of  the 
education  of  princesses,  ladies,  and  high-born  gentlewomen. 
Books  in  English  and  in  other  modern  languages  had  multi- 
plied, and  so  many  facilities  were  afforded  for  female  im- 
provement, that  educated  women  generally  superseded 
learned  men  as  the  principal  teachers  of  young  girls,  and  the 
scholar-like  culture  of  the  mind  gave  place  to  superficial 
training.  The  increased  means  of  acquiring  information 
which  caused  this  deterioration  in  the  upper  classes,  pro- 
moted the  diffusion  of  knowledge  in  those  next  below,  and 
the  daughters  of  merchants  and  tradesmen  soon  began  to 
appear  among  the  literary  women  of  England.  The 
progress  of  literature  among  Englishwomen  resembles 
what  is  termed  in  botany  the  centrifugal  inflorescence  of 
plants  ;  being  not  like  the  spike  of  the  lilac,  where  the 
lowermost  blossoms  first  expand,  but  answering  rather  to 

G 


82          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

the  cyme  of  the  laurustinus,  in  which  the  central  flowers 
open  before  the  outer  ones. 

So  distinctly  had  learning  and  well  directed  intelligence 
been  recognised  as  the  peculiar  attributes  of  women  of 
high  social  rank,  that  those  of  inferior  position  first  distin- 
guished for  possessing  them  were  readily  received  as  equals 
among  the  great  and  fashionable  personages  of  their  day. 

ELIZABETH  COUNTESS  OF  KENT. 

Elizabeth,  second  daughter  of  Gilbert  Talbot,  seventh 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  and  wife  of  Henry  Grey,  Earl  of  Kent, 
compiled  *  A  Choice  Manual  of  Bare  and  Select  Secrets  in 
Physic  and  Chirurgery,'  which  passed  through  sixteen 
editions.  Benevolence,  and  the  blameless  vanity  of  liking 
to  teach  small  things,  are  the  only  qualities  manifested  in 
this  work.  The  Countess  of  Kent  died  at  her  house  in 
White  Friars,  December  7,  1651.  An  engraved  likeness  of 
her  in  a  small  oval  is  prefixed  to  her  book. 

ELIZABETH  COUNTESS  OF  BRIDGWATEE. 

Elizabeth,  second  daughter  of  William  Cavendish,  Duke 
of  Newcastle,  married  John  Egerton,  Viscount  Brackley, 
afterwards  Earl  of  Bridgwater — the  youth  who  performed 
at  Ludlow  Castle,  in  1634,  the  part  of  the  First  Brother  in 
Milton's  Masque  of  Comus.  Chauncey's  '  History  of  Hert- 
fordshire,' and  Collins'  ( Peerage '  give  copies  of  her  monu- 
mental inscription  in  Gaddesden  Church,  which  records 
that  she  wrote  '  Meditations  and  Contemplations  upon 
every  particular  chapter  in  the  Bible.'  Her  beauty,  accom- 
plishments, domestic  virtues,  and  deep  piety  were  so 
thoroughly  appreciated  by  her  excellent  husband,  that  he 
ordered  an  inscription  to  be  placed  over  his  own  grave 
recording  that  he  "  enjoyed  almost  twenty-two  years  all  the 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  83 

happiness  that  a  man  could  receive  in  the  sweet  society  of 
the  best  of  wives." 

The  Countess  of  Bridgwater  died  June  24,  1663,  in  the 
thirty-seventh  year  of  her  age.  The  Earl  survived  her 
twenty-three  years,  four  months,  and  twelve  days,  "en- 
during, rather  than  enjoying  life."  He  died  October  26, 
1686,  aged  sixty-three. 

Her  eldest  sister,  Lady  Jane,  who  married  Charles 
Cheyne,  Esq.,  afterwards  Viscount  Newhaven,  was  also 
the  authoress  of  a  series  of  devout  reflections,  never  pub- 
lished. Lady  Jane  died  beloved,  revered,  and  lamented, 
October  8,  1669,  in  the  forty-eighth  year  ft  her  age,  and 
was  buried  in  Chelsea  Church,  where  her  effigy  by  Bernini 
remains. 

CATHERINE  PHILIPS. 

Catherine,  daughter  of  John  Fowler  of  Bucklersbury, 
merchant,  was  born  January  1, 1631.  She  is  the  first  emi- 
nent Englishwoman  of  whom  it  is  distinctly  recorded  that 
she  was  brought  up  at  a  boarding-school.  In  1647,  she 
married  James  Philips,  Esq.,  of  the  Priory,  Cardigan.  Two 
children,  a  son  and  daughter,  were  the  issue  of  this  mar- 
riage. Her  husband  had  suffered  great  losses  in  the 
Royalist  cause ;  and  vain  attempts  to  retrieve  his  affairs, 
and  to  solace  his  anxieties,  gave  active  and  constant  occu- 
pation to  his  wife.  She  was  highly  esteemed  by  the  prin- 
cipal persons  of  her  time  in  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland, 
and  died  in  Fleet  Street  of  the  small-pox,  June  22,  1664, 
being  thirty-three  years  of  age,  and  was  buried  in  the 
church  of  St.  Bennet,  Sherehog. 

Granger  mentions  a  portrait  of  her  at  Strawberry  Hill, 
an  engraving  from  a  bust  inscribed  "  Orinda ;"  and  a  mez- 
zotinto  by  Becket. 

G  2 


84          L1TERAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Sir  William  Temple,  "  at  the  desire  of  Lady  Temple," 
wrote  a  poem  on  the  death  of  Catherine  Philips,  which 
contains  the  following  terse  and  spirited  eulogy : — 

"  Orinda !  what  ?  the  glory  of  our  stage  ! 
Crown  of  her  sex,  and  wonder  of  the  age  ! 
Graceful  and  fair  in  body  and  in  mind, 
She  that  taught  fallen  virtue  to  be  kind, 
Youth  to  be  wise,  mirth  to  be  innocent, 
Fame  to  be  steady,  envy  to  relent, 
Love  to  be  cold,  and  friendship  to  be  warm, 
Praise  to  do  good,  and  wit  to  do  no  harm. 
Orinda !  that  was  sent  the  world  to  give 
The  best  example  how  to  write  and  live  : 
The  queen  of  poets,  whosoe'er  's  the  king, 
And  to  whose  sceptre  all  their  homage  bring  ; 
Who  more  than  men  conceived  and  understood, 
And  more  than  women  knew  how  to  be  good." 

The  poems,  according  to  Oldys,  as  cited  in  the  '  Censura 
Literaria,'  vol.  ii.  p.  174,  were  published  in  1664,  and  again 
in  an  enlarged  edition  with  her  tragedies  of t  Pompey '  and 
'  Horace '  (translations  from  Corneille)  in  1667 ;  another 
edition  appeared  in  1669,  and  yet  another  in  1678 ; 
Tonson's  edition  in  1710  appears  to  have  been  the  last. 
Her  letters  to  Sir  Charles  Cotterill  were  published  in 
1705,  under  the  affected  title  of  '  Letters  from  Orinda  to 
Poliarchus.' 

Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor  showed  his  appreciation  of  her 
mental  and  moral  qualities  by  addressing  to  her  his 
1  Measures  and  Offices  of  Friendship,'  in  1657.  Cowley 
wrote  during  her  life  a  eulogistic  '  Ode  on  Orinda's  Poems,' 
in  which  he  quaintly  congratulates  her  on  having  can- 
celled "  great  Apollo's  Salique  law."  The  third  stanza  ex- 
presses an  exaggerated  degree  of  sincere  and  cordial  ap- 
proval. 

"  Thou  dost  my  wonder,  wouldst  my  envy  raise, 
If  to  be  praised  I  loved  more  than  to  praise  ; 


-   LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          s"> 

Where'er  I  see  an  excellence, 

I  must  admire  to  see  thy  well-knit  sense, 

Thy  numbers  gentle,  and  thy  fancies  high, 

Those  as  thy  forehead  smooth,  these  sparkling  as  thine  eye. 

Tis  solid,  and  'tis  manly  all, 

Or  rather  'tis  angelical, 

For,  as  in  angels,  we 

Do  in  thy  verses  see 
Both  improved  sexes  eminently  meet : 
They  are  than  man  more  strong,  and  more  than  woman  sweet." 

In  his  '  Ode  on  the  Death  of  Mrs.  Catherine  Philips,' 
(  \  >\\  ley  praises  her  beauty,  accomplishments,  and  piety ;  and 
of  her  literary  productions,  he  says  in  the  third  stanza : — 

"  The  certain  proofs  of  our  Orinda's  wit 
In  her  own  lasting  characters  are  writ, 
And  they  will  long  my  praise  of  them  survive, 
Though  long  perhaps  too  that  may  live. 
The  trade  of  glory,  managed  by  the  pen, 

Though  great  it  be,  and  everywhere  is  found, 
Does  bring  in  but  small  profit  to  us  men, 

'Tis  by  the  number  of  the  sharers  drowned. 
Orinda,  on  the  female  coasts  of  fame, 
Engrosses  all  the  goods  of  a  poetic  name." 

In  the  fourth  stanza,  extolling  her  "hate  of  vice  and 
scorn  of  vanities,"  he  adds  : — 

"  Never  did  spirit  of  the  manly  make, 
And  dipped  all  o'er  in  learning's  sacred  lake, 
A  temper  more  invulnerable  take. 
No  violent  passion  could  an  entrance  find 
Into  the  tender  goodness  of  her  mind." 

Then  in  the  fifth  stanza,  after  commending  her  friendship  ,„ 

\\ith  "  Leucasia" — Anne   Owen — he   concludes   with   the 
following  beautiful  lines : — 

"  As  when  a  prudent  man  docs  once  perceive 
That  in  some  foreign  country  he  must  live, 
The  language  and  the  manners  lie  does  strive 
To  understand  and  practise  here, 
That  he  may  come  no  stranger  there  : 
So  well  Orinda  did  herself  prepare 
In  this  much  different  clitue  for  her  remove 
To  the  glad  world  of  poetry  and  love." 


86  [LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Specimens  of  her  poetry  can  scarcely  fail  to  disappoint 
the  expectations  raised  by  such  eulogies  ;  but  in  versifica- 
tion and  in  sentiment  her  compositions  show  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  literature  of  her  day,  and  a  cultivated 
preference  for  the  best  models  of  imitation. 

AGAINST  PLEASUEE. — AN  ODE. 

"  There's  no  such  thing  as  pleasure  here, 

'Tis  all  a  perfect  cheat, 
Which  does  but  shine  and  disappear, 

Whose  charm  is  but  deceit ; 
The  empty  bribe  of  yielding  souls, 
Which  first  betrays  and  then  controls, 
'Tis  true  it  looks  at  distance  fair ; 

But,  if  we  do  approach, 
The  fruit  of  Sodom  will  impair 

And  perish  at  a  touch ; 
It  being  than  in  fancy  less, 
And  we  expect  more  than  possess. 

For  by  our  pleasures  we  are  cloyed, 

And  so  desire  is  done  ; 
Or  else,  like  rivers,  they  make  wide 

The  channels  where  they  run  ; 
And  either  way  true  bliss  destroys, 
Making  us  narrow,  or  our  joys. 

We  covet  pleasure  easily, 

But  ne'er  true  bliss  possess  ; 
For  many  things  must  make  it  be, 

But  one  may  make  it  less  ; 
Nay,  were  our  state  as  we  would  choose  it 
'T  would  be  consumed  by  fear  to  Jose  it. 
What  art  thou,  then,  thou  winged  air, 

More  weak  and  swift  than  fame, 
Whose  next  successor  is  despair, 

And  its  attendant  shame  ? 
Th'  experienced  prince  then  reason  had, 
Who  said  of  pleasure — '  It  is  mad.'  " 


A  COUNTRY  LIFE. 

How  sacred  and  how  innocent 
A  country  life  appears  ; 

How  free  from  tumult,  discontent, 
From  flattery,  or  fears. 


I  ITKKAKV    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  87 

This  was  the  first  and  happiest  life, 

When  man  enjoyed  himself, 
Till  pride  exchanged  peace  for  strife, 

And  happiness  for  pelf. 

'T  was  here  the  poets  were  inspired, 

Here  taught  the  multitude  ; 
The  brave  they  here  with  honour  fired, 

And  civilised  the  rude. 

That  golden  age  did  entertain 

No  passion  but  of  love  ; 
The  thoughts  of  ruling  and  of  gain 

Did  ne'er  their  fancies  move. 
Them  that  do  covet  only  rest, 

A  cottage  will  suffice  ; 
It  is^not  brave  to  be  possessed 

Of  earth,  but  to  despise. 

Opinion  is  the  rate  of  things, 

From  hence  our  peace  doth  flow  ; 
I  have  a  better  fate  than  kings, 

Because  I  think  it  so. 
When  all  the  stormy  world  doth  roar, 

How  unconcerned  am  I ! 
I  cannot  fear  to  tumble  lower, 

Who  never  could  be  high. 

Secure  in  these  unenvied  walls, 

I  think  not  on  the  state, 
And  pity  no  man's  case  that  falls 

From  his  ambitious  height. 
Silence  and  innocence  are  safe ; 

A  heart  that's  nobly  true 
At  all  these  little  arts  can  laugh, 

That  do  the  world  subdue." 

Campbell,  in  his  *  British  Poets,'  justly  pronounces  of 
Catherine  Philips,  that  "  she  cannot  be  said  to  have  been 
a  woman  of  genius,  but  her  verses  betoken  an  interesting 
and  placid  enthusiasm  of  heart  and  a  cultivated  taste,  that 
form  a  beautiful  specimen  of  female  character." 

MRS.  HUTCHINSON. 

Lucy,  the  second  daughter  of  Sir  Allen  Apsley,  Lieu- 
tenant of  the  Tower,  and  the  eldest  daughter  of  his  third 
wife,  a  daughter  of  Sir  John  St.  John,  of  Lidiard  Tregoze. 


LITEKAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Wiltshire,  was  born  in  the  Tower  of  London,  in  the  year 
1 620.  Both  her  parents  were  excellent  persons,  and  they 
spared  neither  care  nor  expense  in  the  education  of  their 
promising  and  precocious  child.  When  only  seven  years 
old  she  was  provided  with  no  less  than  eight  "  tutors  "  to 
instruct  her  "  in  several  qualities,  languages,  music,  dan- 
cing, writing,  and  needlework."  *  It  is  to  be  presumed 
that  some  of  these  "  tutors  "  were  of  the  feminine  gender. 
Books,  however,  were  her  chief  delight,  and  she  outstripped 
her  brothers  in  Latin  and  other  scholastic  acquirements. 
She  profited  also  by  attending  to  the  conversation  of  her 
father's  wise  and  well-informed  guests,  and  by  the  oppor- 
tunities which  her  mother  afforded  her  of  hearing  the 
best  preachers.  The  noble  and  generous  qualities  of  her 
parents,  too,  made  an  early  and  indelible  impression  upon 
her  observant  and  thoughtful  mind.  In  1630,  her  father 
died,  and  the  widow,  with  her  family,  removed  to  Eich- 
mond.  On  the  3rd  of  July,  1638,  Lucy  Apsley  was  married 
in  the  church  of  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  to  John,  eldest  son 
of  Sir  Thomas  Hutchinson,  of  Owthorpe,  in  the  county  of 
Nottingham.  Making  their  home  at  first  with  her  mother 
in  London,  they  soon  afterwards  moved  their  joint  house- 
holds to  the  "  Blue  House,"  in  Enfield  Chace,  where  Mr. 
Hutchinson  devoted  two  years  to  the  study  of  divinity. 
In  1641,  having  then  three  children,  she  went  with  her 
husband  to  Owthorpe,  where  they  resided  very  happily  for 
a  few  months,  their  tranquillity  being  at  last  disturbed  only 
by  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War.  Mr.  Hutchinson, 
with  conscientious  care,  examined  the  records  of  history 
and  the  claims  of  the  contending  parties;  and,  being 
thoroughly  convinced  of  the  unlawfulness  of  the  King's 

*  See  the  autobiographical  sketch  included  in  her  'Life  of  Colonel 
Hutchinson.' 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          89 

1  iroc. •<  •(! ings  and  the  justice  of  the  Parliament's  resistance 
t«>  tin-  manifest  infringement  of  civil  rights,  he  accepted 
Uicir  commission  as  lieutenant-colonel  in  Colonel  Pierre- 
1 'cut's  regiment  of  militia ;  and  on  the  29th  of  June,  1643, 
undertook,  as  governor,  the  defence  of  Nottingham  Castle ; 
a  post  of  great  importance,  as  that  fortress  commanded 
the  principal  pass  between  the  northern  and  southern 
oumties.  Against  all  sorts  of  disadvantages,  want  of 
proper  defensive  works,  provisions,  and  money,  against 
open  assaults  and  treacherous  intrigues,  his  skill  and 
courage  enabled  him  successfully  to  maintain  this  position 
until  the  close  of  the  war  in  1647.  His  father,  Sir 
Thomas,  had  died  in  London  in  1643,  and  Colonel  Hutch- 
inson,  inheriting  the  Owthorpe  estate,  returned  when  his 
military  duties  were  over  to  its  mansion,  which  had  been 
spoiled,  stripped,  and  ruined  by  the  royal  garrisons  of 
Shelford  and  Wiverton.  Having  been  deprived  of  the 
rents  for  several  years,  he  found  himself  ever  after  an  im- 
poverished and  embarrassed  man.  In  1648,  he  removed 
his  wife  and  his  large  family  of  children  to  London,  and 
took  his  seat  in  Parliament  as  a  representative  of  the 
county  of  Nottingham.  Much  against  his  will,  he  was 
nominated  one  of  the  commissioners  for  the  trial  of  King 
Charles,  and  under  a  mistaken  sense  of  duty  gave  his  vote 
for  that  king's  death. 

In  1649,  Colonel  Hutchinson  was  chosen  a  member  of 
the  Council  of  State,  and  had  many  opportunities  of 
enriching  himself;  but  he  declined  them  all,  seeking  only 
to  recover  the  sums  justly  due  to  him,  and  to  engage  only 
in  such  employments  as  would  not  separate  him  from  his 
home.  Having  arranged  his  affairs  and  rebuilt  his  house 
at  Owthorpe,  he  passed  much  of  his  time  there,  taking  no 
prominent  part  in  politics  after  Oliver  Cromwell  had 


90  LITEEAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

entered  upon  the  protectorate,  but  actively  devoting  him- 
self to  the  improvement  of  his  paternal  estate,  to  the 
promotion  of  his  neighbours'  welfare,  and  the  education  of 
his  children,  while  indulging  his  taste  for  literature  and 
the  fine  arts,  manly  exercises,  and  social  hospitality.  In 
the  words  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  "  He  spared  not  any  cost 
for  the  education  of  both  his  sons  and  daughters  in  lan- 
guages, sciences,  music,  dancing,  and  all  other  qualities  (i.  e. 
qualifications)  befitting  their  father's  house.  He  was  him- 
self their  instructor  in  humility,  sobriety,  and  all  godliness 
and  virtue,  which  he  rather  strove  to  make  them  exercise 
with  love  and  delight  than  by  constraint."  Thus  Colonel 
Hutchinson  and  his  wife  Lucy  spent  their  beneficent  and 
happy  days  until  1660,  the  year  of  the  Eestoration ;  and 
to  some  placid  hour  of  casual  solitude  occurring  at  Ow- 
thorpe  the  following  verses  from  her  eloquent  pen  owe 
their  origin : — 

"  All  sorts  of  men  through  various  labours  press, 

To  the  same  end — contented  quietness  ; 

Great  princes  vex  their  labouring  thoughts  to  be 

Possessed  of  an  unbounded  sovereignty  ; 

The  hardy  soldier  doth  all  toils  sustain 

That  he  may  conquer  first,  and  after  reign  ; 

Th'  industrious  merchant  ploughs  the  angry  seas 

That  he  may  bring  home  wealth,  and  live  at  ease. 

These  none  of  them  attain  ;  for  sweet  repose 

But  seldom  to  the  splendid  palace  goes ; 

A  troop  of  restless  passions  wander  there, 

And  only  private  lives  are  free  from  care. 

Sleep  to  the  cottage  bringeth  happy  nights, 

But  to  the  court  hung  round  with  flaring  lights, 

Which  th'  office  of  the  vanished  day  supply, 

His  image  only  comes  to  close  the  eye, 

But  gives  the  troubled  mind  no  ease  of  care, 

While  country  slumbers  undisturbed  are  ; 

Where,  if  the  active  fancy  dreams  present, 

They  bring  no  horrors  to  the  innocent. 

Ambition  doth  incessantly  aspire, 

And  each  advance  leads  on  to  new  desire  ; 

Nor  yet  can  riches  av'rice  satisfy, 

For  want  and  wealth  together  multiply  : 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  91 

Nor  can  voluptuous  men  more  fulness  find, 

For  enjoyed  pleasures  leave  their  stings  behind. 

He's  only  rich  who  knows  no  want ;  he  reigns 

Whose  will  no  severe  tyranny  constrains  ; 

And  he  alone  possesseth  true  delight 

Whose  spotless  soul  no  guilty  fears  affright. 

This  freedom  in  the  country  life  is  found, 

Where  innocence  and  safe  delights  abound. 

Here  man's  a  prince  ;  his  subjects  ne'er  repine 

When  on  his  back  their  wealthy  fleeces  shine  : 

If  for  his  appetite  the  fattest  die, 

Those  who  survive  will  raise  no  mutiny  ; 

His  table  is  with  home-got  dainties  crowned, 

With  friends,  not  flatterers,  encompassed  round  ; 

No  spies  nor  traitors  on  his  trencher  wait, 

Nor  is  his  mirth  confined  to  rules  of  state  ; 

An  armed  guard  he  neither  hath  nor  needs, 

Nor  fears  a  poisoned  morsel  when  he  feeds  ; 

Bright  constellations  hang  above  his  head, 

Beneath  his  feet  are  flow'ry  carpets  spread  ; 

The  merry  birds  delight  him  with  their  songs, 

And  healthful  air  his  happy  life  prolongs  ; 

At  harvest  merrily  his  flocks  he  shears, 

And  in  cold  weather  their  warm  fleeces  wears ; 

Unto  his  ease  he  fashions  all  his  clothes ; 

His  cup  with  uninfected  liquor  flows : 

The  vulgar  breath  doth  not  his  thoughts  elate, 

Nor  can  he  be  o'erwhelmed  by  their  hate. 

Yet,  if  ambitiously  he  seeks  for  fame, 

One  village  feast  shall  gain  a  greater  name 

Than  his  who  wears  the  imperial  diadem, 

Whom  the  rude  multitude  do  still  condemn. 

Sweet  peace  and  joy  his  blest  companions  are  ; 

Fear,  sorrow,  envy,  lust,  revenge,  and  care, 

And  all  that  troop  which  breeds  the  world's  offence, 

With  pomp  and  majesty  are  banished  thence. 

What  court,  then,  can  such  liberty  afford, 

Or  where  is  man  so  uncontroll'd  a  lord  ?  " 

Colonel  Hutchinson  was  upon  principle  a  republican, 
and  so  true  a  patriot  that  neither  Cromwell  nor  King 
Charles  II.  could,  either  by  temptations  or  persecutions, 
shake  his  disinterested  adherence  to  the  cause  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

In  the  first  parliament  of  King  Charles  II.  Colonel 
Hutchinson  was  the  representative  of  the  town  of  Notting- 


92  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

ham,  and  went  up  to  London  in  April  to  take  his  place  in 
the  House.  The  Court  party  bearing  him  malice  for  his 
conduct  during  the  Civil  War,  and  dissatisfied  with  the 
quiet  moderation  of  his  present  conduct,  attempted  to 
erase  his  name  from  the  Act  of  Oblivion,  but  the  fervent 
intercession  of  his  royalist  brother-in-law,  Sir  Allen  Apsley, 
prevailed  in  his  favour,  and  Colonel  Hutchinson  withdrew 
to  his  tranquil  home  at  Owthorpe.  In  October,  1663,  he 
was  arrested,  and  in  November  committed  to  the  Tower 
upon  an  accusation  of  treason.  His  wife  and  his  eldest 
son  Thomas  accompanied  him  to  London,  but  for  several 
weeks  afterwards  were  ,not  allowed  to  see  him.  His  ene- 
mies failing  to  implicate  him  in  a  conspiracy  which  they 
called  "the  Northern  Plot,"  but  determined  on  wreak- 
ing their  malice,  had  him  removed  from  the  Tower  to 
Sandown  Castle,  near  Deal,  where,  after  an  imprison- 
ment of  eleven  months,  he  died  from  harsh  treatment, 
September  11, 1664,  at  the  age  of  forty-eight.  Through 
all  his  troubles  his  faithful  wife  ministered  to  his  neces- 
sities, brought  his  children  and  friends  about  him  for  his 
comfort,  managed  his  affairs,  and  did  all  that  the  most 
affectionate  heart  and  the  most  comprehensive  and 
acute  intellect  could  suggest  to  procure  his  liberation 
and  to  soften  his  captivity.  She  had  his  remains  de- 
posited in  the  family  vault  at  Owthorpe  ;  but  the  date 
of  her  own  death  and  the  place  of  her  own  inter- 
ment have  not  been  ascertained.  The  'Memoir  of  the 
Life  of  Colonel  Hutchinson,  by  his  Widow  Lucy/  is  the 
most  perfect  piece  of  biography  ever  written  by  a  woman, 
and  the  view  which  it  incidentally  reveals  of  her  own 
character,  conduct,  and  abilities,  entitles  her  to  rank 
among  the  most  admirable  women  of  her  country.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  other  person  of  her  sex,  in 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  !KJ 

any  country,  ever  possessed  as  fine  a  combination  of  mental 
power  and  domestic  ability  with  affections  at  once  so 
tender  and  so  true.  There  is  an  engraved  portrait  of  her, 
with  one  of  her  little  sons,  prefixed  to  a  volume  of  the  first 
(<  lit  ion  of  her  work. 

As  a  specimen  of  her  prose  style,  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
description  of  her  husband's  character  is  subjoined,  though 
nothing  short  of  a  perusal  of  the  whole  work  can  convey  a 
just  notion  of  the  vigour  of  her  mind,  and  the  skilful  ease 
with  which  she  moulded  thought  into  language. 

"To  number  his  virtues  is  to  give  the  epitome  of  his 
life,  which  was  nothing  else  but  a  progress  from  one  degree 
of  virtue  to  another,  till,  in  a  short  time,  he  arrived  to  that 
height  which  many  longer  lives  could  never  reach,  and 
had  I  but  the  power  of  rightly  disposing  and  relating  them, 
his  single  example  would  be  more  instructive  than  all  the 
rules  of  the  best  moralists,  for  his  practice  was  of  a  more 
Divine  extraction,  drawn  from  the  Word  of  God  and 
wrought  up  by  the  assistance  of  His  Spirit ;  therefore,  in 
the  head  of  all  his  virtues,  I  shall  set  that  which  was  the 
head  and  spring  of  them  all — his  Christianity — for  this 
alone  is  the  true  royal  blood  that  runs  through  the  whole 
body  of  virtue,  and  every  pretender  to  that  glorious  family, 
who  hath  no  tincture  of  it,  is  an  impostor  and  a  spurious 
brat.  This  is  that  sacred  fountain  which  baptizeth  all  the 
gentle  virtues  that  so  immortalize  the  names  of  Cicero, 
Plutarch,  Seneca,  and  all  the  old  philosophers ;  herein  they 
are  regenerated,  and  take  a  new  name  and  nature ;  dug  up 
in  the  wilderness  of  nature,  and  dipped  in  this  living  spring, 
they  are  planted  and  flourish  in  the  paradise  of  God.  By 
Christianity  I  intend  that  universal  habit  of  grace  which 
is  wrought  in  a  soul  by  the  regenerating  Spirit  of  God, 
whereby  the  whole  creature  is  resigned  up  into  the  Divine 


94  LITERACY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

will  and  love,  and  all  its  actions  directed  to  the  obedience 
and  glory  of  its  Maker.  As  soon  as  he  had  improved  his 
natural  understanding  with  the  acquisition  of  learning,  the 
first  studies  in  which  he  exercised  himself  were  the  prin- 
ciples of  religion,  and  the  first  knowledge  he  laboured  for 
was  a  knowledge  of  God,  which,  by  a  diligent  examination 
of  the  Scripture  and  the  several  doctrines  of  great  men 
pre-tending  that  ground,  he  at  length  obtained.  After- 
wards, when  he  had  laid  a  sure  and  orthodox  foundation  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  free  grace  of  God,  given  us  by  Jesus 
Christ,  he  began  to  survey  the  superstructures  and  to  dis- 
cover much  of  the  hay  and  stubble  of  men's  inventions  in 
God's  worship,  which  His  Spirit  burned  up  in  the  day  of 
their  trial.  His  faith  being  established  in  the  truth,  he 
was  full  of  love  to  God  and  all  his  saints.  He  hated 
persecution  for  religion,  and  was  always  a  champion  for 
all  religious  people  against  all  their  great  oppressors.  He 
detested  all  scoffs  at  any  practice  of  worship,  though  such 
a  one  as  he  was  not  persuaded  of.  Whatever  he  prac- 
tised in  religion  was  neither  for  faction  nor  advantage,  but 
.  contrary  to  it ;  and  purely,  for  conscience'  sake.  As  he  hated 
outsides  in  religion,  so  could  he  worse  endure  those  apos- 
tacies,  and  those  denials  of  the  Lord,  and  base  compliances 
of  his  adversaries,  which  timorous  men  practise  under  the 
name  of  prudent  and  just  condescensions  to  avoid  persecu- 
tion. Christianity  being  in  him  as  the  fountain  of  all  his 
virtues,  and  diffusing  itself  in  every  stream — that  of  his 
prudence  falls  into  the  next  mention.  He  from  a  child 
was  wise,  and  sought  to  by  many  that  might  have  been 
his  fathers  for  counsel,  which  he  could  excellently  give 
to  himself  and  others ;  and  whatever  cross  event  in  any  of 
his  affairs  may  give  occasion  to  fools  to  overlook  the 
wisdom  of  the  design,  yet  he  had  as  great  a  foresight,  as 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.          95 

a  judgment,  as  clear  an  apprehension  of  men  and 
tilings  as  any  man.  He  had  rather  a  firm  impression  than 
a  great  memory,  yet  he  was  forgetful  of  nothing  but 
injuries.  His  own  integrity  made  him  credulous  of  other 
men's,  till  reason  and  experience  convinced  him ;  and  he 
was  as  unapt  to  believe  cautions  which  could  not  be  re- 
ceived without  entertaining  ill  opinions  of  men ;  yet  he 
had  wisdom  enough  never  to  commit  himself  to  a  traitor, 
though  he  was  once  wickedly  betrayed  by  friends  whom 
necessity,  and  not  mistake,  forced  him  to  trust.  He  was 
as  ready  to  hear  as  to  give  counsel,  and  never  pertinacious 
in  his  will  when  his  reason  was  convinced.  There  was  no 
opinion  which  he  was  most  settled  in,  either  concerning 
Divine  or  human  things,  but  he  would  patiently  and  im- 
partially hear  it  debated.  In  matters  of  faith  his  reason 
always  submitted  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  what  he  could 
not  comprehend  he  would  believe  because  it  was  written ; 
but  in  all  other  things,  the  greatest  names  in  the  world 
could  never  lead  him  without  reason :  he  would  deliberate 
when  there  was  time,  but  never,  by  tedious  dispute,  lost 
an  opportunity  of  anything  that  was  to  be  done.  He 
would  hear  as  well  as  speak,  and  yet  never  spoke  im- 
pertinently or  unreasonably.  He  very  well  understood  his 
own  advantages,  natural  parts,  gifts,  and  acquirements,  yet 
so  as  neither  to  glory  of  them  to  others  nor  over-value 
himself  for  them  ;  for  he  had  an  excellent  virtuous  modesty, 
which  shut  out  all  vanity  of  mind,  and  yet  admitted  that 
true  understanding  of  himself  which  was  requisite  for  the 
best  improvement  of  all  his  talents ;  he  no  less  understood 
and  was  more  heedful  to  remark  his  defects,  imperfections, 
and  disadvantages,  but  that  only  to  excite  his  circum- 
spection concerning  them,  not  to  damp  his  spirit  in  any 
noble  enterprise.  He  had  a  noble  spirit  of  government  belli 


96  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

in  civil,  military,  and  domestic  administrations,  which 
forced  even  from  unwilling  subjects  a  love  and  reverence 
of  him,  and  endeared  him  to  the  souls  of  those  who  re- 
joiced to  be  governed  by  him.  He  had  a  native  majesty 
that  struck  an  awe  of  him  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and  a 
sweet  greatness  that  commanded  love.  He  had  a  clear 
discerning  of  men's  spirits,  and  knew  how  to  give  everyone 
their  just  weight.  He  contemned  none  that  were  not 
wicked,  in  whatever  low  degree  of  nature  or  fortune  they 
were  otherwise :  wherever  he  saw  wisdom,  learning,  or  other 
virtues  in  men,  he  honoured  them  highly,  and  admired 
them  to  their  full  rate,  but  never  gave  himself  blindly 
up  to  the  conduct  of  the  greatest  master.  Love  itself, 
which  was  as  powerful  in  his  as  in  any  soul,  rather 
quickened  than  blinded  the  eyes  of  his  judgment  in 
discerning  the  imperfections  of  those  that  were  most 
dear  to  him.  His  soul  ever  reigned  as  king  in  the  in- 
ternal throne,  and  never  was  captive  to  his  sense;  reli- 
gion and  reason,  its  two  favoured  counsellors,  took  order 
that  all  the  passions  kept  within  their  own  just  bounds, 
did  him  good  service  there,  and  furthered  the  public 
weal.  He  found  such  felicity  in  that  proportion  of 
wisdom  that  he  enjoyed,  as  he  was  a  great  lover  of 
that  which  advanced  it — learning  and  the  arts,  which  he 
not  only  honoured  in  others,  but  had  by  his  industry 
arrived  to  be  himself  a  far  greater  scholar  than  is  abso- 
lutely requisite  for  a  gentleman.  He  had  many  excellent 
attainments,  but  he  no  less  evidenced  his  wisdom  in  know- 
ing how  to  rank  and  use  them,  than  in  gaining  them.  He 
had  wit  enough  to  have  been  subtle  and  cunning,  but  he 
so  abhorred  dissimulation  that  I  cannot  say  he  was  either. 
Greatness  of  courage  would  not  suffer  him  to  put  on  a 
visor,  to  secure  him  from  any  ;  to  retire  into  the  shadow  of 


LTTEKAKY  WOMFA"  OF  KNOLAND.          07 

privacy  and  silonce  was  all  his  prudence  could  effect  in 
him.  It  would  be  as  hard  to  say  which  was  the  predo- 
minant virtue  in  him,  as  which  is  so  in  its  own  nature.  He 
was  as  excellent  in  justice  as  in  wisdom  ;  nor  could  the 
greatest  advantage,  or  the  greatest  danger,  or  the  dearest 
interest  or  friend  in  the  world,  prevail  on  him,  to  pervert 
justice  even  to  an  enemy.  He  never  professed  the  thing 
he  intended  not,  nor  promised  what  he  believed  out  of  his 
own  power,  nor  failed  the  performance  of  anything  that 
was  in  his  power  to  fulfil.  Never  fearing  anything  he 
could  suffer  for  the  truth,  he  never  at  any  time  would 
refrain  a  true  or  give  a  false  witness ;  he  loved  truth  so 
much  that  he  hated  even  sportive  lies  and  gulleries.  He 
was  so  just  to  his  own  honour  that  he  many  times  for- 
bore things  lawful  and  delightful  to  him,  rather  than 
he  would  give  any  one  occasion  of  scandal.  Of  all  lies 
he  most  hated  hypocrisy  in  religion ;  either  to  comply 
with  changing  governments  or  persons  without  a  real 
persuasion  of  conscience,  or  to  practise  holy  things  to  get 
the  applause  of  men  or  any  advantage.  As  in  religion  so 
in  friendship  ;  he  never  professed  love  when  he  had  it  not ; 
nor  disguised  hate  or  aversion,  which  indeed  he  never  had 
t«>  any  party  or  person,  but  to  their  sins:  and  he  loved 
<  -vcn  his  bitterest  enemies  so  well,  that  I  am  witness  how 
his  soul  mourned  for  them,  how  heartily  he  desired  their 
conversion.  If  he  were  defective  in  any  part  of  justice,  it 
was  when  it  was  in  his  power  to  punish  those  who  had 
injured  him,  whom  I  have  so  often  known  him  to  recom- 
pense with  favours  instead  of  revenge,  that  his  friends  used 
t<  >  tell  him,  if  they  had  any  occasion  to  make  him  favour- 
ably partial  to  them,  they  would  provoke  him  by  an 
in  jury.  He  was  as  faithful  and  constant  to  his  friends  as 
merciful  to  his  enemies  :  nothing  grieved  him  more  than 

H 


98          LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

to  be  obliged  where  he  could  not  hope  to  return  it.  He 
that  was  a  rock  to  all  assaults  of  might  and  violence,  was 
the  gentlest,  easiest  soul  to  kindness,  of  which  the  least 
warm  spark  melted  him  into  anything  that  was  not  sinful ; 
there  never  was  a  man  more  exactly  just  in  the  performance 
of  duties  to  all  relations  and  all  persons.  Honour,  obedience, 
and  love  to  his  father  were  so  natural  and  so  lasting  in 
him,  that  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  better  son  than  he 
was  ;  and  whoever  would  pray  for  a  blessing  in  children  to 
any  one,  could  but  wish  them  such  a  son  as  he.  He  never 
repined  at  his  father's  will  in  anything,  how  much  soever  it 
were  to  his  prejudice,  nor  would  endure  to  hear  any  one 
say  his  father  was  not  so  kind  to  him  as  he  might  have 
been ;  but  to  his  dying  day  preserved  his  father's  memory 
with  such  tender  affection  and  reverence  as  was  admirable, 
and  had  that  high  regard  for  his  mother-in-law  and  the 
children  she  brought  his  father,  that  he  could  not  have 
been  more  dearly  concerned  in  all  their  interest  if  she  had 
been  his  own  mother,  which,  all  things  considered,  although 
they  were  deserving  persons,  was  an  example  of  piety  and 
goodness  that  will  not  easily  be  matched.  For  conjugal 
affection  to  his  wife  it  was  such  in  him,  as  whosoever  would 
draw  out  a  rule  of  honour,  kindness,  and  religion,  to  be 
practised  in  that  estate,  need  no  more  but  exactly  draw 
out  his  example ;  never  man  had  a  greater  passion  for  a 
woman,  nor  a  more  honourable  esteem  of  a  wife  ;  yet  he 
was  not  uxorious,  nor  remitted  he  that  just  rule  which  it 
was  her  honour  to  obey,  but  managed  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment with  such  prudence  and  affection  that  she  who  would 
not  delight  in  such  an  honourable  and  advantageable 
subjection,  must  have  wanted  a  reasonable  soul.  He 
governed  by  persuasion,  which  he  never  employed  but 
to  things  honourable  and  profitable  for  herself;  he  loved 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  !»!) 

her  soul  and  her  honour  more  than  her  outside,  and  yet  he 
had  even  for  her  person  a  constant  indulgence,  exceeding 
tin*  common  temporary  passions  of  the  most  uxorious 
fools.  If  he  esteemed  her  at  a  higher  rate  than  she  in 
herself  could  have  deserved,  he  was  the  author  of  that 
virtue  he  doated  on,  while  she  only  reflected  his  own 
glories  upon  him  :  all  that  she  was  was  him,  while  he  was 
here,  and  all  that  she  is  now  at  best  is  but  his  pale  shade. 
So  liberal  was  he  to  her,  and  of  so  generous  a  temper,  that 
ho  hated  the  mention  of  severed  purses ;  his  estate  being 
so  much  at  her  disposal,  that  he  never  received  an  account 
of  anything  she  expended  ;  so  constant  was  he  in  his  love, 
that  when  she  ceased  to  be  young  and  lovely  he  began  to 
show  most  fondness ;  he  loved  her  at  such  a  kind  and 
generous  rate  as  words  cannot  express ;  yet  even  this, 
which  was  the  highest  love  he  or  any  man  could  have,  was 
yet  bounded  by  a  superior ;  he  loved  her  in  the  Lord  as  his 
fellow-creature,  not  his  idol,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  showed 
that  an  affection,  bounded  in  the  just  rules  of  duty,  far 
exceeds  every  way  all  the  irregular  passions  in  the  world. 
He  loved  God  above  her  and  all  the  other  dear  pledges  of 
his  heart,  and  at  His  command,  and  for  His  glory,  cheerfully 
resigned  them ;  and  was  as  kind  a  father,  as  dear  a  brother, 
as  good  a  master,  and  as  faithful  a  friend  as  the  world 
had ;  yet  in  all  these  relations  the  greatest  indulgence  he 
could  have  in  the  world  never  prevailed  on  him  to  indulge 
vice  in  the  dearest  person ;  but  the  more  dear  any  were  to 
him,  the  more  was  he  offended  at  anything  that  might  take 
off  the  lustre  of  their  glory.  As  he  had  great  severity 
against  errors  and  follies  pertinaciously  pursued,  so  had  he 
the  most  merciful,  gentle,  and  compassionate  frame  of 
spirit  that  can  be  imagined  to  those  who  became  sensible 
of  their  errors  and  frailties,  although  they  had  been  ever  so 

H2 


100  LITEKARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

injurious  to  himself.  Nor  was  his  soul  less  shining  in  honour 
than  in  love.  Piety  being  still  the  bond  of  all  his  other 
virtues,  there  was  nothing  he  durst  not  do  or  suffer  but  sin 
against  God ;  and,  therefore,  as  he  never  regarded  his  life 
in  any  noble  and  just  enterprise,  so  he  never  staked  it  in 
any  rash  or  unwarrantable  hazard.  He  was  never  sur- 
prised, amazed,  nor  confounded  with  great  difficulties  or 
dangers,  which  rather  served  to  animate  than  distract  his 
spirits  ;  he  had  made  up  his  accounts  with  life  and  death, 
and  fixed  his  purpose  to  entertain  both  honourably,  so  that 
no  accident  ever  dismayed  him,  but  he  rather  rejoiced  in 
such  troublesome  conflicts  as  might  signalise  his  generosity. 
A  truer  or  more  lively  valour  there  never  was  in  any  man, 
but  in  all  his  actions  it  ever  marched  in  the  same  file  with 
wisdom.  He  understood  well,  and  as  well  performed  when 
he  undertook  it,  the  military  art  in  all  parts  of  it ;  he 
naturally  loved  the  employment,  as  it  suited  with  his 
active  temper  more  than  any,  conceiving  a  mutual  delight 
in  leading  those  men  that  loved  his  conduct ;  and  when  he 
commanded  soldiers,  never  was  man  more  loved  and  rever- 
enced by  all  that  were  under  him ;  for  he  would  never 
condescend  to  them  in  anything  they  mutinously  sought, 
nor  suffer  them  to  seek  what  it  was  fit  for  him  to  provide, 
but  prevented  them  by  his  loving  care  ;  and  while  he 
exercised  his  authority  no  way  but  in  keeping  them  to 
their  just  duty,  they  joyed  as  much  in  his  commands  as  he 
in  their  obedience.  He  was  very  liberal  to  them,  but  ever 
chose  just  times  and  occasions  to  exercise  it.  I  cannot  say 
whether  he  were  more  truly  magnanimous  or  less  proud ; 
he  never  disdained  the  meanest  person,  nor  flattered  the 
greatest ;  he  had  a  loving  and  sweet  courtesy  to  the 
poorest,  and  would  often  employ  many  spare  hours  with 
the  commonest  soldiers  and  poorest  labourers,  but  still  so 


LITERARY   WOMEN   Ol     i:\<il  AND.  '101 

ordering  his  familiarity  as  it  never  raised  them  to  a  con- 
tempt, but  entertained  still  at  the  same  time  a  reverence 
with  love  of  him;  he  ever  preserved  himself  in  his  own 
rank,  neither  being  proud  of  it  so  as  to  despise  any  in- 
ferior, nor  letting  fall  that  just  decorum  which  his  honour 
obliged  him  to  keep  up.  He  was  as  far  from  envy  of 
superiors  as  from  contemning  them  that  were  under  him. 
He  was  above  the  ambition  of  vain  titles,  and  so  well  con- 
tented with  the  even  ground  of  a  gentleman,  that  no  in- 
vitation could  prevail  upon  him  to  advance  one  step  that 
way.  He  loved  substantial  not  airy  honour.  As  he 
was  above  seeking  or  delighting  in  empty  titles  for  him- 
self, so  he  neither  denied  nor  envied  any  man's  due 
precedency,  but  pitied  those  that  took  a  glory  in  that 
which  had  no  foundation  of  virtue.  As  little  did  he  seek 
after  popular  applause,  or  pride  himself  in  it,  if  at  any 
time  it  cried  up  his  just  deserts.  He  more  delighted  to 
do  well  than  to  be  praised,  and  never  set  vulgar  com- 
mendations at  such  a  rate  as  to  act  contrary  to  liis  own  con- 
science or  reason  for  obtaining  them  ;  nor  would  he  forbear 
a  good  action  which  he  was  bound  to,  though  all  the  world 
disliked  it,  for  he  ever  looked  on  things  as  they  were  in 
themselves,  not  through  the  dim  spectacles  of  vulgar  esti- 
mation. As  he  was  far  from  a  vain  affectation  of  popu- 
larity, so  he  never  neglected  that  just  care  that  an 
honest  man  ought  to  have  of  his  reputation,  and  was 
as  careful  to  avoid  the  appearances  of  evil  as  evil  itself ; 
but  if  he  were  evil  spoken  of  for  truth  or  righteousness' 
sake,  he  rejoiced  in  taking  up  the  reproach,  which  all  good 
men  that  dare  bear  their  testimony  against  an  evil  genera- 
tion must  suffer.  Though  his  zeal  for  truth  and  virtue 
caused  the  wicked,  with  the  sharp  edges  of  their  malicious 
tongues,  to  shave  off  the  glories  from  his  head,  yet  his 


102 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 


honour,  springing  from  the  fast  root  of  virtue,  did  but 
grow  the  thicker  and  more  beautiful  for  all  their  endea- 
vours to  cut  it  off.  He  was  as  free  from  avarice  as  from 
ambition  and  pride ;  never  had  any  man  a  more  contented 
and  thankful  heart  for  the  estate  that  God  had  given,  but 
it  was  a  very  narrow  compass  for  the  exercise  of  his  great 
heart.  He  loved  hospitality  as  much  as  he  hated  riot ;  he 
could  contentedly  be  without  things  beyond  his  reach, 
though  he  took  very  much  pleasure  in  all  those  noble  de- 
lights that  exceeded  not  his  faculties.  In  those  things 
that  were  of  mere  pleasure,  he  loved  not  to  aim  at  that 
he  could  not  attain;  he  would  rather  wear  clothes  abso- 
lutely plain  than  pretend  to  gallantry,  and  would  rather 
choose  to  have  none  than  mean  jewels  or  pictures,  and 
such  other  things  as  were  not  of  absolute  necessity.  He 
would  rather  give  nothing  than  a  base  reward  or  present, 
and  upon  that  score  he  lived  very  much  retired,  though 
his  nature  was  very  sociable,  and  delighted  in  going  into 
and  receiving  company,  because  his  fortune  would  not 
allow  him  to  do  it  in  such  a  noble  manner  as  suited  with 
his  mind.  He  was  so  truly  magnanimous  that  prosperity 
could  never  lift  him  up  in  the  least,  nor  give  him  any 
tincture  of  pride  or  vain-glory,  nor  diminish  a  general 
affability,  courtesy,  and  civility,  that  he  always  showed  to 
all  persons.  When  he  was  most  exalted  he  was  most 
merciful  and  compassionate  to  those  that  were,  humbled. 
At  the  same  time  that  he  vanquished  any  enemy,  he  cast 
away  all  his  illwill  to  him,  and  entertained  thoughts  of 
love  and  kindness  as  soon  as  he  ceased  to  be  in  a  posture 
of  opposition.  He  was  as  far  from  meanness  as  from 
pride,  as  truly  generous  as  humble,  and  showed  his  noble 
spirit  more  in  adversity  than  in  his  prosperous  condition. 
He  vanquished  all  the  spite  of  his  enemies  by  his  manly 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  103 

sufferings,  and  all  the  contempts  they  could  cast  at  him 
were  their  shame,  not  his.  His  whole  life  was  the  rule  of 
temperance  in  meat,  drink,  apparel,  pleasure,  and  all  those 
things  that  may  be  lawfully  enjoyed;  and  herein  his 
temperance  was  more  excellent  than  in  others,  in  whom  it 
is  not  so  much  a  virtue,  but  proceeds  from  want  of  appetite 
or  gust  of  pleasure ;  in  him  it  was  a  true,  wise,  and 
religious  government  of  the  desire  and  delight  he  took  in 
the  things  he  enjoyed.  He  had  a  certain  activity  of  spirit 
which  could  never  endure  idleness  either  in  himself  or 
others,  and  that  made  him  eager,  for  the  time  he  indulged 
it,  as  well  in  pleasure  as  in  business;  indeed,  though  in 
youth  he  exercised  innocent  sports  a  little  while,  yet 
afterwards  his  business  was  his  pleasure ;  but,  how  intent 
soever  he  were  in  anything,  how  much  soever  it  delighted 
him,  he  could  freely  and  easily  cast  it  away  when  God 
called  him  to  something  else.  He  had  as  much  modesty 
as  could  consist  with  a  true  virtuous  assurance,  and  hated 
an  impudent  person.  Neither  in  youth  nor  in  riper  age 
could  the  most  fair  or  enticing  women  ever  draw  him 
into  unnecessary  familiarity  or  vain  converse  or  dalliance 
with  them,  yet  he  despised  nothing  of  the  female  sex  but 
their  follies  and  vanities ;  wise  and  virtuous  women  he 
loved,  and  delighted  in  all  pure,  holy,  and  unblameable 
conversation  with  them,  but  so  as  never  to  excite  scandal 
or  temptation.  Scurrilous  discourse  even  among  men  he 
abhorred ;  and  though  he  sometimes  took  pleasure  in  wit 
and  mirth,  yet  that  which  was  mixed  with  impurity  he 
never  would  endure.  The  heat  of  his  youth  a  little  inclined 
him  to  the  passion  of  anger,  and  the  goodness  of  his  nature 
to  those  of  love  and  grief,  but  reason  was  never  dethroned 
by  them,  but  continued  governor  and  moderator  in  his 
soul." 


104  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

MARGARET  DUCHESS  OF  NEWCASTLE. 

Margaret,  youngest  daughter  of  Sir  Charles  Lucas,  and 
sister  of  Lord  Lucas  of  Colchester,  was  appointed  a  Maid- 
of-Honour  to  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  in  the  year  1643 ;  and, 
being  with  her  Koyal  mistress  at  Paris,  was  married  there, 
in  1645,  to  William  Cavendish,  Marquis  of  Newcastle. 
He  was  then  a  widower,  living  in  poverty  and  exile,  but 
had  been  the  most  distinguished  general  of  King  Charles  I. 
in  the  Civil  War,  raising  and  maintaining  troops  with 
lavish  generosity,  and  fighting  rather  as  an  auxiliary  to 
his  Sovereign  than  as  a  feudatory  chief  until,  after  the 
disastrous  rout  of  Marston  Moor,  he  abandoned  the  hope- 
less contest  and  quitted  England.  She  was  a  cheerful, 
clever  creature,  full  of  fresh  fancies  and  amusing  devices, 
and  proved  a  most  agreeable  and  useful  companion  in  his 
impoverished  banishment.  In  the  course  of  sixteen  years, 
which  they  spent  partly  at  Eotterdam  and  partly  at  Antwerp, 
the  Marchioness  paid  one  long  visit  to  her  native  country, 
with  the  intention  of  obtaining  a  public  grant  of  money 
from  the  Marquis's  confiscated  estates ;  but,  failing  in  this 
design,  she  brought  back  subsidies  from  his  family  and  her 
own  for  their  maintenance. 

Returning  to  England  at  the  Restoration,  the  Marquis 
recovered  his  estates,  and  received  an  acknowledgment  of 
his  services  and  sufferings  in  a  ducal  coronet.  Having 
proved  her  estimable  qualities  in  adversity,  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  in  prosperity,  preferred  a  retired  life  and  her 
society  to  public  employments  and  the  pleasures  of  the 
Court.  With  the  exception  of  occasional  visits  to  London, 
made  at  long  intervals,  they  spent  the  remainder  of  their 
lives  at  Welbeck,  in  Derbyshire,  He  had  himself  an 
inclination  for  literature ;  and,  besides  separate  composi- 


LITEKAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  105 

tions,  often  amused  himself  by  making  contributions  to  the 
Duchess's  works,  and  writing  eulogistic  commentaries  upon 
them.  She  was  not  acquainted  with  the  dead  languages, 
nor  was  she,  apparently,  well  read  in  modern  books ;  she 
avowedly  cared  little  for  any  other  compositions  than  her 
own  and  her  husband's ;  and,  beginning  to  write  on  poetical 
and  philosophical  subjects  before  she  was  twelve  years 
of  age,  contrived,  by  indefatigable  diligence,  and  the 
employment  of  many  young  gentlewomen  as  scribes,  to 
win  the  fame  of  being  the  most  voluminous  of  all  female 
authors — a  fame  as  yet  unrivalled  in  England  or  the 
world. 

It  is  probable  that  every  living  writer  would  concur  in 
the  opinion  that  no  paragraph  was  ever  yet  so  perfectly 
well  expressed  in  the  first  writing  down  but  what  it  might 
be  amended  in  the  second.  Waller,  her  contemporary, 
enunciated  that 

"  Faultless  writing  is  the  effect  of  care  ; 
Our  works  reformed,  and  not  composed  in  haste, 
Polished  like  marble,  shall  like  marble  last." 

Yet,  defying  example  and  precept,  common-sense  and  her 
own  experience,  the  Duchess  made  a  rule  never  to  revise 
her  works,  "  lest  it  should  disturb  her  following  concep- 
tions ! "  She  thus  quaintly  describes  her  own  perform- 
ances : — "  You  will  find  my  works  like  infinite  nature, 
that  has  neither  beginning  nor  end ;  and  as  confused  as 
chaos,  wherein  is  neither  method  nor  order,  but  all  mixed 
together  without  separation  like  evening  light  and  dark- 
ness."* Wood  states,  in  his  'Athenae,'  vol.  ii.  col.  160, 
that  James  Bristow,  of  Caius  College,  Oxford,  "  a  man  of 
admirable  parts,"  was  employed  by  the  Duchess  of  New- 
castle to  translate  her  works  into  Latin ;  but  he,  "  finding 

*  Letter  cxxxi. 


106  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

great  difficulty  therein,  through  the  confusedness  of  the 
subject,  gave  over,  as  being  a  matter  not  to  be  well  per- 
formed by  any ! " 
Her  works  are — 

1.  *  The  World's  Olio.'     London,  1655.     Folio. 

2.  '  Nature's  Picture  drawn  by  Fancy's  Pencil  to  the 
Life.'     London,  1656.     Folio. 

3.  'Orations  of  divers  sorts,  accommodated  to   divers 
places.'     London,  1662.     Folio. 

4.  <  Plays.'     London,  1662.     Folio. 

5.  '  Philosophical  and  Physical  Opinions.'  London,  1663. 
Folio. 

6.  '  Philosophical  Letters,  or  Modest  Keflections  upon 
some   Opinions   in    Natural    Philosophy   maintained  by 
several  famous  and  learned  Authors  of  this  Age,  expressed 
by  way  of  Letters.'     London,  1664.     Folio. 

7.  *  Poems  and  Fancies.'    London,  1664.     Folio. 

8.  <CCXI.  Sociable  Letters.'     London,  1664.     Folio. 

9.  'The  Life  of  the  thrice  noble,  high,  and  puissant 
Prince  William  Cavendish,  Duke,  Marquis,  and  Earl  of 
Newcastle,'  &c.  &c.     London,  1667.     Folio. 

10.  '  Observations  upon  Experimental  Philosophy.'  2nd 
edit.     London,  1668.     Folio. 

11.  'Plays  never  before  Printed.'   London,  1668.   Folio. 
Besides  these  published  works,  three  manuscript  volumes 

of  the  Duchess's  '  Poems '  are  still  extant ;  and,  as  if  it 
were  deemed  necessary  that  posthumous  praise  should  be  on 
a  scale  commensurate  with  her  own  productions,  in  the 
year  1676  a  folio  volume  was  published  containing  '  Letters 
and  Poems  in  honour  of  the  incomparable  Princess  Mar- 
garet Duchess  of  Newcastle.'  She  died  in  London  in 
1673,  and  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
Park  quotes  from  Keed  a  pleasing  summary  of  the  cha- 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         107 

racter  of  this  excellent  though  eccentric  woman : — "  Her 
person,  it  is  said,  was  very  graceful ;  her  temper  naturally 
reserved  and  shy,  and  she  seldom  said  much  in  company, 
especially  among  strangers ;  was  most  indefatigable  in 
her  studies,  contemplations,  and  writings  ;  was  truly  pious, 
charitable,  and  generous  ;  was  an  excellent  economist,  very 
kind  to  her  servants,  and  a  perfect  pattern  of  conjugal  love 
and  duty." 

The  Duke  survived  her  three  years,  and  was  buried 
under  the  same  stately  tomb. 

Granger  says  there  is  a  portrait  of  her  at  Welbeck,  by 
Diepenbeke,  and  describes  two  engravings  from  other 
paintings :  in  one,  also  by  Diepenbeke,  she  is  represented 
"  standing  in  a  niche,  a  term  of  Mars  on  her  right  hand, 
and  another  of  Apollo  on  her  left ;  "  in  the  second,  again 
from  a  portrait  by  the  same  painter,  she  is  depicted  sitting 
under  a  canopy  in  her  study,  attended  by  four  Cupids, 
two  of  which  are  placing  a  wreath  of  laurel  on  her  head. 
There  is  a  pleasing  engraved  portrait  of  her  in  Park's 
edition  of  Walpole's  *  Catalogue  of  Koyal  and  Noble 
Authors.' 

From  *  The  Pastime  and  Kecreation  of  the  Queen  of  the 
Fairies  in  Fairyland,  the  centre  of  the  Earth,7  is  extracted 
this  fanciful  picture  of 

QUEEN  MAB. 

"  Queen  Mab  and  all  her  company 
Dance  on  a  pleasant  mole-hill  high, 
To  small  straw  pipes,  wherein  great  pleasure 
They  take,  and  keep  just  time  and  measure  ; 
All  hand  in  hand,  around,  around, 
They  dance  upon  the  fairy  ground  ; 
And  when  she  leaves  her  dancing-hall, 
She  doth  for  her  attendants  call, 
To  wait  upon  her  to  a  bower, 
Where  she  doth  sit  under  a  flower, 


108  LITERARY    WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

To  shade  her  from  the  moonshine  bright, 
Where  gnats  do  sing  for  her  delight ; 
The  whilst  the  bat  doth  fly  about, 
To  keep  in  order  all  the  rout. 
A  dewy  waving  leafs  made  fit 
For  the  queen's  bath,  where  she  doth  sit, 
And  her  white  limbs  in  beauty  show, 
Like  a  new  fallen  flake  of  snow. 
Her  maids  do  put  her  garments  on, 
Made  of  the  pure  light  from  the  sun, 
Which  do  so  many  colours  take, 
As  various  objects  shadows  make." 

These  are  just  such  lines  as  might  almost  make  them- 
selves in  the  head  of  an  impressible,  imaginative  person 
after  reading  and  delighting  in  Shakspeare's  '  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream.' 

In  another  poem,  the  Duchess,  relating  the  allurements 
offered  to  her  by  personifications  of  Mirth  and  Melancholy, 
gives  the  unfavourable  picture  of  Melancholy  as  drawn  by 
Mirth,  and  the  attractive  one  drawn  by  Melancholy  of 

herself : — 

i. 

"  Her  voice  is  low,  and  gives  a  hollow  sound, 
She  hates  the  light,  and*  is  in  darkness  found, 
Or  sits  with  blinking  lamps  or  tapers  small, 
Which  various  shadows  make  against  the  wall. 
She  loves  nought  else  but  noise  which  discord  makes, 
As  croaking  frogs,  whose  dwelling  is  in  lakes, 
The  raven's  hoarse,  the  mandrake's  hollow  groan, 
And  shrieking  owls  which  fly  i'  the  night  alone, 
The  tolling  bell,  which  for  the  dead  rings  out, 
A  mill,  where  rushing  waters  run  about, 
The  roaring  winds,  which  shake  the  cedars  tall, 
Plough  up  the  seas,  and  beat  the  rocks  withall ; 
She  loves  to  walk  in  the  still  moonshine  night, 
And  in  a  thick  dark  grove  she  takes  delight ; 
In  hollow  caves,  thatched  houses,  and  low  cells, 
She  loves  to  live,  and  there  alone  she  dwells. 
2. 

"  I  dwell  in  groves  that  gilt  are  with  the  sun, 
»    Sit  on  the  bank  by  which  clear  waters  run, 
In  summers  hot  down  in  a  shade  I  lie ; 
My  music  is  the  buzzing  of  a  fly  ; 
I  walk  in  meadows  where  grows  fresh  green  grass, 
In  fields  where  corn  is  high,  I  often  pass  ; 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         KH> 

Walk  up  the  hills  whore  round  I  prospects  see, 
Some  brushy  woods,  and  some  all  champaigns  be  ; 
Returning  buck,  I  in  ftvHh  pastures  go, 
To  hear  how  sheep  do  bloat,  and  cows  do  low. 
In  winter  cold,  when  nipping  frosts  come  on, 
Then  I  do  live  in  a  small  house  alone  ; 
Although  'tis  plain,  yet  cleanly  'tis  within, 
Like  to  a  soul  that's  pure  and  clear  from  sin  ; 
And  there  I  dwell  in  quiet  and  still  peace, 
Not  filled  with  cares  how  riches  to  increase  ; 
I  wish  nor  seek  for  vain  and  fruitless  pleasures  ; 
No  riches  are,  but  what  the  mind  intreasures. 
Thus  am  I  solitary,  live  alone, 
Yet  better  loved  the  more  that  I  am  known  ; 
And  though  my  face,  ill-favour'd  at  first  sight, 
After  acquaintance  it  will  give  delight 
Refuse  me  not,  for  I  shall  constant  be  ; 
Maintain  your  credit  and  your  dignity." 

The  '  II  Penseroso  '  and  '  L'Allegro '  of  Milton  must  un- 
doubtedly have  haunted  the  Duchess's  memory,  stimu- 
lating her  fancy  to  imitative  rivalry  in  the  above  lines ; 
yet  they  are  original  and  appropriate,  and,  had  their  pro- 
totypes been  lost,  would  probably  have  been  accounted 
admirable.  "No  riches  are  but  what  the  mind  intrea- 
sures "  is  a  fine  sentiment  aptly  expressed. 

ANNE  COUNTESS  OF  PEMBROKE,  DORSET,  AND 

MONTGOMERY. 

Of  this  extraordinary  personage  Dr.  Donne  averred,  "that 
she  well  knew  how  to  discourse  of  all  things  from  predesti- 
nation to  slea  silk."  Although  not  a  regular  authoress,  Anne 
Countess  of  Pembroke  was  an  eminently  learned  woman — 
one  who  lived  and  worked,  not  merely  for  the  good  of  her 
own  generation,  but  also  for  posterity,  and  her  illustrious 
name  is  an  honour  to  her  sex  and  country.  She  was  born 
at  Skipton  Castle,  Craven,  on  the  30th  of  January,  1590, 
and  was  the  only  child  and  heir  of  George  Clifford,  third 
Earl  of  Cumberland.  Her  education  was  very  carefully 
conducted :  her  preceptor  in  scholastic  lore  was  Samuel 


110  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Daniel,  the  historian  and  poet-laureate;  and,  under  her 
widowed  mother's  inspection,  she  was  instructed  in  the 
arts  of  housewifery,  as  well  as  in  all  the  elegant  accom- 
plishments of  her  day.  Bishop  Eainbow  *  says  :  "  She 
had  a  clear  soul,  shining  through  a  vivid  body  ;  her  body 
was  durable  and  healthful,  her  soul  sprightful ;  of  great 
understanding  and  judgment,  faithful  memory,  and  ready 
wit."  She  was  twice  married,  first  to  Kichard  Sackville 
Earl  of  Dorset,  Feb.  26,  1609,  who  died  in  1624,  leaving 
her  with  two  surviving  children ;  and  again  to  Philip 
Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  who  died  in 
1649.  She  afterwards  lived  twenty-seven  years  in  widow- 
hood, distinguished  by  her  faithful  zeal  for  the  Church  of 
England,  magnificent  public  charities,  and  private  acts  of 
benevolence.  The  Countess  kept  a  diary,  from  which  her 
biographers  have  derived  the  most  interesting  particulars 
of  her  life.  Her  habits  were  simple  and  inexpensive; 
and  although  she  built  or  repaired  no  less  than  six  castles, 
which  she  inhabited  by  turns,  she  was  "  a  perfect  mistress 
of  forecast  and  aftercast."  She  founded  two  hospitals, 
repaired  seven  churches — Brougham,  Nine  Kirks,  Appleby, 
Bongate,  Mallerstang,  Barden,  and  Skipton  —  and  did 
many  other  munificent  works.  On  suitable  occasions  she 
appeared  in  all  the  sumptuous  array  befitting  the  owner 
of  three  coronets  of  mounted  pearls  and  strawberry -leaves : 
her  ordinary  clothes  were  homespun  and  home-made. 
Four  times  in  every  year  she  gave  away  good  books  to  her 
household,  permitting  each  servant  to  make  choice  of  a 
volume  not  possessed  before.  She  kept  by  her  great 
quantities  of  things  suitable  for  gifts,  and  characteristic 

*  In  Wilford's  'Memorials,  pp.  90-100,  may  be  found  the  Sermon 
preached  by  Dr.  Edward  Eainbow,  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  at  Appleby,  on 
the  day  of  her  funeral.  It  is  not  only  edifying,  but  also  highly  curious 
and  entertaining. 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  Ill 

of  herself  and  her  pursuits,  and  she  liberally  bestowed 
them  upon  departing  guests  as  memorials  of  her.  She 
caused  her  servants  to  write  out  choice  sentences,  which 
she  selected  from  various  authors ;  and  her  maids,  by  her 
direction,  pinned  them  up  about  her  bed  and  the  hangings 
of  her  chamber,  so  that  she  might  take  them  as  texts  to 
descant  upon  when  dressing,  and  thus  avoid  the  tempta- 
tion to  encourage  gossiping. 

Dr.  Johnson  asserts  that  the  word  "  literary  is  not 
properly  used  of  epistolary  missives."  If  this  requires 
limitation,  the  letter  of  the  Countess  to  Sir  Joseph 
Williamson,  Secretary  of  State  to  King  Charles  II.,  who 
had  proposed  a  candidate  to  represent  one  of  her  boroughs 
in  Parliament,  may  be  accepted  as  a  model  of  terse  and 
spirited  composition : — 

"  SIR, — I  have  been  bullied  by  a  usurper,  I  have  been 
neglected  by  a  court,  but  I  will  not  be  dictated  to  by  a 
subject :  your  man  shall  not  stand. 

"  ANNE  PEMBROKE,  DORSET,  AND  MONTGOMERY." 

The  neglect  of  the  Court  she  probably  felt  the  more 
keenly  from  having  when  a  child  been  petted  by  Queen 
Elizabeth.  Her  tender  recollection  of  persons  who  had 
been  kind  to  her  is  proved  by  two  affecting  instances — 
one  being  the  monument  to  her  tutor,  in  Beckington 
church,  Somersetshire,  on  which  she  placed  the  following 
inscription : — 

"  Here  lies,  expecting  the  second  coming  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  the  dead  body  of  Samuel  Daniel, 
Esq.,  who  was  tutor  to  the  Lady  Anne  Clifford  in  her 
youth.  She  was  that  daughter  and  heir  to  George  Clifford 
Earl  of  Cumberland,  who,  in  gratitude  to  him,  erected 
this  monument  in  his  memory,  a  long  time  after,  when 


112  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

she  was  Countess  Dowager  of  Pembroke,  Dorset,  and 
Montgomery :  he  died  in  October,  an.  1619." 

The  other  manifests  her  filial  piety  : — 

"This  pillar  was  erected,  anno  1656,  by  the  Eight 
Honourable  Anne  Countess  Dowager  of  Pembroke,  and 
sole  heir  of  the  Eight  Honourable  George  Earl  of  Cum- 
berland, &c.,  for  a  memorial  of  her  last  parting  in  this 
place  with  her  good  and  pious  mother  the  Eight  Honour- 
able Margaret  Countess  Dowager  of  Cumberland,  the 
second  of  April,  1616.  She  also  left  an  annuity  of  four 
pounds  to  be  distributed  to  the  poor  within  this  parish  of 
Brougham  every  second  day  of  April  for  ever  upon  this 
stone  table  by.  Laus  Deo." 

Bishop  Gibson,  in  his  additions  to  Camden's  '  Britannia,' 
ed.  1772,  tracing  the  course  of  the  old  Eoman  way  through 
Westmorland,  says: — "From  Hart-horn  tree*  the  way 
goes  directly  westward  to  the  Countess's  Pillar ;"  and,  after 
giving  the  inscription,  he  adds :  "  From  this  pillar  the 
Way  carries  us  to  Brougham  Castle,  and  from  thence 
directly  to  Lowther  Bridge,  and  so  over  the  Eimot  into 
Cumberland/' 

Hence  it  appears,  that  being  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  her  favourite  residence,  the  Countess  of  Pembroke 
delighted  in  blending  the  memory  of  her  mother  with  her 
daily  pursuits.  Being  herself  the  daughter  of  an  Earl  and 
Countess,  this  Countess  had  two  daughters  by  her  first 
husband,  the  Earl  of  Dorset ;  Margaret,  who  became  by 
marriage  Countess  of  Thanet ;  and  Isabella,  who  became 
by  marriage  Countess  of  Northampton ;  and  she  lived  to 
see  numerous  grandchildren.  She  took  such  particular 
delight  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  that  she  had  one  of  the 
Gospels  read  to  her  in  the  course  of  every  week ;  read  for 

*  Where  '  Hart  a-greese  killed  Hercules.' 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         I  I.'! 

1  in-self  several  psalms  every  day  ;  and  repeated  aloud  the 
8th  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  every  Sunday 
in  the  year,  knowing  it  by  heart  from  beginning  to  end. 
AY  hen  dying,  the  last  words  she  uttered  were  some  appro- 
priate verses  of  that  chapter. 

At  her  castle  of  Brougham  the  Countess  died,  March  22, 
1675,  as  her  epitaph  records,  "  Christianly,  willingly,  and 
quietly."  She  was  interred  at  Appleby,  under  a  monu- 
ment which  she  herself  had  erected.  This  lady  was  in  her 
own  right  Baroness  of  Clifford,  Westmorland,  and  Vesey ; 
and  surviving  her  uncle  and  cousin,  who  successively 
inherited  her  father's  Earldom,  was  the  last  true-born 
Clifford  of  that  energetic  race,  excepting  only  her  cousin's 
daughter,  Elizabeth  Countess  of  Burlington.  Granger 
mentions  a  whole-length  picture  of  Lady  Pembroke  at 
Apperley  *  Castle,  Cumberland,  and  a  painting  in  the  pos- 
session of  Mr.  Walpole,  besides  a  very  scarce  engraving, 
in  which  she  is  represented  at  the  age  of  thirteen.  The 
one  in  the  l  Catalogue  of  Koyal  and  Noble  Authors '  is 
doubtless  taken  from  the  portrait  at  Strawberry  Hill. 
The  countenance  beams  with  energetic  life,  and  the  figure 
looks  full  of  elasticity. 

*  Query  Appleby. 


114  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTEE    VI. 


1675-1700. 

Introductory  remarks  —  Mary  Countess  of  Warwick  —  Lady  Pakington  — 
Lady  Fanshawe  —  Anne  Killigrew—  Anne  Wliarton —  Lucy  Marchioness 
of  Wharton  —  Aphara  Behn  —  Elizabeth    Walker  —  Lady    Gethin  — 
Lady  Halket  —  Retrospective  observations  and  remarks  on   the  true 
purposes  of  Biography,  and  on  the  abilities  and  writings  of  Women. 


"  In  every  age,  while  wits  of  men 

Could  judge  the  good  from  bad, 
Who  gat  the  gift  of  tongue  or  pen, 
Of  world  great  honour  had." 

WILLIAM  HOLMK,  1595. 


THE  accurate  knowledge  of  dead  and  living  languages, 
the  study  of  theology  and  philosophy,  history  and  poetry, 
were  combined  in  the  high-bred  matrons  and  maidens  of 
the  Tudor  times  with  practical  skill  in  music,  adroitness 
in  spinning  silk  and  flax,  excellence  in  all  kinds  of  needle- 
work and  "  loops  of  fingering  fine,"  dexterity  in  the  arts 
of  the  apothecary  and  the  minor  operations  of  surgery, 
aptitude  in  culinary  and  cosmetic  inventions,  and  practical 
ability  for  domestic  management.  To  their  successors  of 
the  third  generation  descended  only  the  manual  part  of 
these  various  and  valuable  acquisitions — a  reaction  taking 
place  which  reduced  the  literary  knowledge  of  English- 
women of  the  upper  classes  to  bare  reading,  writing,  and 
the  first  four  rules  of  arithmetic. 

Mr.  Hallam  has  said  of  the  period  1689-1702,  "  William's 


UTF.HAKY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  1  1  •"» 

reign,  always  excepting  Dryden,  is  Our  nadir  in  works  of 
imagination."* 

Addison,  writing  of  his  contemporaries,  declares  that  in 
those  days  learning  was  "  not  thought  a  proper  ingredient 
in  the  education  of  a  woman  of  quality  or  fortune/' 

Nevertheless,  under  every  disadvantage  and  discourage- 
ment, there  arose  gifted  women,  who  brightened  their  own 
times,  and  have  left  their  memories  to  posterity. 

MARY  COUNTESS  OF  WARWICK. 

Mary,  daughter  of  Richard  Boyle,  first  Earl  of  Cork, 
and  wife  of  Charles  Rich,  Earl  of  Warwick,  died  April 
12,  1678.  To  her,  George,  first  Earl  Berkeley,  dedi- 
cated his  *  Historical  Applications/  avowing  that  she  had 
"  a  sovereign  power  over  him,  and  was  pleased  to  en- 
courage him  to  write  religious  meditations ;"  and  to  him 
the  Countess  of  Warwick  addressed  a  letter  full  of  ex- 
cellent advice,  in  which,  with  great  felicity  of  phrase,  she 
especially  recommends  "  the  gaiety  of  goodness."  Her 
claim  to  a  place  among  literary  women  rests  chiefly  upon 
her  '  Occasional  Meditations  upon  sundry  subjects,  with 
pious  Reflections  upon  several  subjects,  by  the  Right  Hon. 
Mary,  late  Countess  Dowager  of  Warwick.'  London,  1678. 
It  appears  to  have  been  her  ambition  to  use  her  moderate 
abilities  for  the  promotion  of  good  morals  and  piety. 

An  engraved  likeness  of  her  is  prefixed  to  the  funeral 
sermon  preached  at  Felsted,  in  Essex,  by  Dr.  Walker, 
rector  of  Fyfield,  in  which  her  noble  and  beneficent  cha- 
racter is  highly  praised. 

LADY  PAKINGTON. 

Dorothy,  daughter  of  Thomas  Lord  Coventry,  the  Lord 
Keeper,  married  Sir  John  Pakington,  Bart.,  of  Westwood. 

*  •  Lit.  of  Eur.,'  ed.  iv.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  489. 

i  2 


116  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

She  led  a  retired  life,  and  devoted  herself  to  learning, 
piety,  and  good  works.  She  was  the  author  of  several 
religious  books — *  The  Gentleman's  Calling,'  '  The  Lady's 
Calling,'  <  The  Government  oj  the  Tongue,'  <  The  Chris- 
tian's Birthright,'  and  '  The  Causes  of  the  Decay  of  Chris- 
tian Piety ;'  and  she  was  for  many  years  reputed  to  be 
the  author  of  <  The  Whole  Duty  of  Man.' 

She  enjoyed  the  esteem  and  friendship  of  the  most  emi- 
nent divines  of  her  time,  and,  in  the  days  of  their  depriva- 
tion and  need,  rendered  them  the  most  substantial  ser- 
vices. The  excellent  Dr.  Hammond  found  a  home  in  her 
hospitable  house  during  several  years,  and  was  at  last 
buried  in  the  chapel  of  the  Pakingtons  at  Hampton  Lovett, 
Worcestershire.  Lady  Pakington  died  May  10,  1679,  in 
a  good  old  age. 

LADY  FANSHAWE. 

Anne,  eldest  daughter  of  Sir  John  Harrison  and  Mar- 
garet Fanshawe  his  wife,  was  born  in  London,  March  25, 
1625.  Her  mother  took  great  pains  with  her  education, 
directing  her  attention  more  especially  to  domestic  useful- 
ness, and,  dying  when  Anne  was  only  fifteen  years  of  age, 
left  her  capable  of  managing  her  father's  household  with 
discretion  and  economy.  At  nineteen  years  of  age  Anne 
Harrison  married  her  cousin,  Eichard  Fanshawe.  The 
following  year,  1635,  she  accompanied  him  to  Spain, 
where  he  became  Secretary  to  the  British  Embassy.  Ke- 
turning  to  England  in  1641,  her  husband  exerted  himself 
strenuously  in  the  cause  of  King  Charles  I.  Being  taken 
prisoner  at  the  battle  of  Worcester,  he  was  for  a  time 
closely  confined ;  and  his  wife,  not  being  permitted  to  visit 
him,  exposed  herself  to  great  hardships  in  order  to  alle- 
viate his  painful  solitude  by  standing  to  converse  with  him. 


LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    KMil.AND.  117 

outside  Ills  window  in  the  dead  of  night  and  in  bad 
\\v;ither.  On  his  release  they  withdrew  to  Tankersley 
Park,  in  Yorkshire,  where  he  occupied  himself  with  poetry 
and  polite  literature,  and  his  wife  entered  with  delight 
into  all  his  pursuits.  In  1656  they  went  to  Breda,  where 
he  was  knighted  by  King  Charles  II. 

At  the  Kestoration,  Sir  Kichard  was  made  Master  of 
Bequests,  and  sent  to  Portugal  to  negotiate  the  marriage 
of  the  King  with  the  Princess  Catherine.  In  1664,  he  was 
sent  as  British  Ambassador  to  Spain,  whither  his  wife 
accompanied  him.  Sir  Kichard  translated  into  English 
the  '  Pastor  Fido'  of  Guarini,  from  the  Italian,  and  the 
*  Lusiad '  of  Camoens,  from  the  Portuguese.  His  letters 
written  during  his  embassies  were  printed  after  his  death, 
which  took  place  suddenly  in  1666,  to  the  extreme  grief 
of  his  devoted  wife. 

In  the  first  anguish  of  this  dreadful  bereavement  she  was 
exposed  to  such  distressing  poverty  that  she  long  wanted 
pecuniary  means  to  convey  his  remains  to  the  tomb  of  his 
fathers,  and  to  maintain  her  orphan  children.  Sir  Richard's 
salary  was  in  arrear,  and  no  remittances  could  be  obtained 
from  the  Ministers  of  the  profligate  King,  who  wasted  the 
public  money  in  vice,  instead  of  paying  his  faithful  servants 
and  compensating  the  losses  of  his  suffering  adherents. 

The  Queen  of  Spain  offered  Lady  Fanshawe  and  her 
five  children  a  handsome  provision,  on  condition  of  their 
conforming  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  but  the  pious 
widow  withstood  the  temptation,  even  while  the  embalmed 
corpse  of  her  beloved  husband  lay  daily  in  her  sight. 
Means  were  furnished  at  last  by  the  Queen  Dowager  of 
Spain  ;  the  removal  to  England  was  effected,  and  Sir 
Richard's  remains  were  interred  within  the  chapel  of  St. 
Mary  in  the  church  of  Ware. 


118  'LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Lady  Fanshawe  survived  him  fourteen  years,  devoting 
her  widowhood  to  the  education  of  her  children,  to  acts  of 
benevolence,  and  to  self-improvement.  She  died  in 
January,  1680. 

The  '  Memoir '  which  she  wrote  of  herself  is  her  best 
and  most  durable  monument ;  a  likeness  is  prefixed  to  it. 

The  following  extract  shows  her  character  as  well  as 
her  husband's : — 

"  And  now  I  thought  myself  a  perfect  queen,  and 
my  husband  so  glorious  a  crown  that  I  more  valued  my- 
self to  be  called  by  his  name  than  if  I  had  been  a  prin- 
cess ;  for  I  knew  him  very  wise  and  very  good,  and  that 
his  soul  doted  on  me ;  upon  which  confidence  I  will  tell 
you  what  happened.  My  Lady  Rivers,  a  brave  woman, 
and  one  that  had  suffered  many  thousand  pounds  loss  for 
the  King,  for  whom  I  had  a  great  reverence,  and  she  a  kins- 
woman's kindness  for  me,  in  discourse  tacitly  commended 
the  knowledge  of  State  affairs;  she  mentioned  several 
women  who  were  very  happy  in  a  good  understanding 
thereof,  and  said  none  of  them  was  originally  more  capable 
than  I.  She  said  a  post  would  arrive  from  Paris  from  the 
Queen  that  night,  and  she  should  extremely  like  to  know 
what  news  it  brought — adding,  if  I  would  ask  my  husband 
privately,  he  would  tell  me  what  he  found  in  the  packet, 
and  I  might  tell  her.  I,  that  was  young  and  innocent, 
and  to  that  day  had  never  in  my  mouth  'What  news?' 
now  began  to  think  there  was  more  in  inquiry  into  public 
affairs  than  I  had  thought  of;  and  that,  being  a  fashion- 
able thing,  it  would  make  me  more  beloved  of  my  hus- 
band than  I  already  was,  if  that  had  been  possible.  When 
my  husband  returned  home  from  the  council,  after  re- 
ceiving my  welcome,  he  went  with  his  hands  full  of  papers 
into  his  study.  I  followed  him ;  he  turned  hastily,  and 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         1  1 !) 

said,  '  What  wouldst  thou  have,  my  life  ?'  I  told  him  I 
heard  the  Prince  had  received  a  packet  from  the  Queen, 
and  I  guessed  he  had  it  in  his  hand,  and  I  desired  to 
know  what  was  in  it.  He  smilingly  replied,  *  My  love,  I 
will  immediately  come  to  thee ;  pray  thee  go,  for  I  am 
very  busy.'  When  he  came  out  of  his  closet  I  renewed 
my  suit ;  he  kissed  me,  and  talked  of  other  things.  At 
supper  I  would  eat  nothing ;  he  as  usual  sat  by  me,  and 
drank  often  to  me,  which  was  his  custom,  and  was  full  of 
discourse  to  company  that  was  at  table.  Going  to  bed  I 
asked  him  again,  and  said  I  could  never  believe  he  loved 
me,  if  he  refused  to  tell  me  all  he  knew.  He  answered 
nothing,  but  stopped  my  mouth  with  kisses.  I  cried,  and 
he  went  to  sleep.  Next  morning  very  early,  as  his  custom 
was,  he  called  to  rise,  but  began  to  discourse  with  me  first, 
to  which  I  made  no  reply ;  he  rose,  came  on  the  other 
side  of  the  bed,  kissed  me,  drew  the  curtains  softly,  and 
went  to  court.  When  he  came  home  to  dinner,  he  pre- 
sently came  to  me  as  was  usual,  and  when  I  had  him  by 
the  hand,  I  said,  '  Thou  dost  not  care  to  see  me  troubled  ;' 
to  which  he,  taking  me  in  his  arms,  answered :  *  My  dearest 
soul,  nothing  on  earth  can  afflict  me  like  that ;  when  you 
asked  me  of  my  business  it  was  wholly  out  of  my  power  to 
satisfy  thee:  my  life,  my  fortune,  shall  be  thine,  and 
every  thought  of  my  heart  in  which  the  trust  I  am  in  may 
not  be  revealed ;  but  my  honour  is  my  own,  which  I  can- 
not preserve  if  I  communicate  the  Prince's  affairs.  I 
pray  thee  with  this  answer  rest  satisfied.'  So  great  was 
his  Teason  and  goodness  that,  upon  consideration,  it  made 
my  folly  appear  to  me  so  vile  that,  from  that  day  until  the 
day  of  his  death,  I  never  thought  fit  to  ask  him  any  busi- 
ness, except  what  he  communicated  freely  to  me  in  order 
to  his  estate  or  family." 


120  .LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

ANNE  KILLIGREW. 

Anne,  daughter  of  Dr.  Henry  Killigrew,  Master  of  the 
Savoy,  received  a  learned  education,  and  excelled  in 
painting.  She  was  a  Maid-of-Honour  to  the  Duchess  of 
York,  and  died  in  1685,  of  the  small-pox,  being  not  quite 
twenty-five  years  of  age.  She  was  buried  in  St.  John's 
Chapel,  in  the  Savoy.  She  painted  her  own  portrait,  imi- 
tating the  style  of  Sir  Peter  Lely.  Granger  describes 
three  engravings  from  it;  one  by  Blooteling,  one  by 
Becket,  and  one  by  Chambers,  copied  from  Becket's,  and 
inserted  by  Walpole  in  his  '  Anecdotes  of  Painting.'  Her 
'  Poems,'  together  with  Dryden's  ode  on  her  decease,  were 
published  in  1686.  From  the  one  'Upon  the  Saying  that 
my  Yerses  were  made  by  Another,'  Ballardhas  extracted 
the  following  lines  in  praise  of  Catherine  Philips  :— 

"  Orinda  (Albion's  and  her  sex's  grace) 
Owed  not  her  glory  to  a  beauteous  face, 
It  was  her  radiant  soul,  that  shone  within, 
Which  struck  a  lustre  through  her  outward  skin. 
That  did  her  lips  and  cheeks  with  roses  dye, 
Advanced  her  height,  and  sparkled  in  her  eye ; 
Nor  did  her  sex  at  all  obstruct  her  fame, 
But  higher  'mong  the  stars  it  fixed  her  name  ; 
What  she  did  write,  not  only  all  allowed, 
But  every  laurel  to  her  laurel  bowed." 

These  lines  are  rather  below,  than  above  mediocrity; 
yet  the  woman  who  was  capable  of  calling  forth  the  follow- 
ing stanzas  must,  in  some  measure,  be  worthy  of  the  earthly 
immortality  which  they  bestow  : — 

AN  ODE,  BY  JOHN  DRYDEN, 

To  the  pious  memory  of  the  accomplished  young  lady  MES.  ANNE  KILLIGREW, 
excellent  in  the  two  sister-arts  of  Poesy  and  Painting. 

I. 

"  Thou  youngest  virgin-daughter  of  the  skies, 
Made  in  the  last  promotion  of  the  blessed ; 
Whose  palms,  new  pluck'd  from  paradise, 
In  spreading  branches  more  sublimely  rise, 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  121 

Kirli  with  immortal  green  above  the  rest ; 

Win  tin  r  adopted  to  some  Height/ring  star, 

Thou  roll'st  above  us  in  thy  wand' ring  race, 

Or,  in  procession  fix'd  and  regular, 

Mov'd  with  the  heav'n's  majestic  paci- : 

Or,  called  to  more  superiour  bliss, 

Thou  tread'st  with  seraplu'ms  the  vast  abyss. 

Whatever  happy  region  is  thy  place, 

Cease  thy  celestial  song  a  little  space  ; 

Thou  wilt  have  time  enough  for  hymns  divine, 

Since  heav'n's  eternal  year  is  thine  : 

Hear,  then,  a  mortal  muse  thy  praise  rehearse 

In  no  ignoble  verse  ; 

But  such  as  thine  own  voice  did  practise  here, 

When  thy  first  fruits  of  poesy  were  giv'n 

To  make  thyself  a  welcome  inmate  there  ; 

While  yet  a  young  probationer, 

And  candidate  of  heav'n. 

II. 

If  by  traductioii  came  thy  mind, 

Our  wonder  is  the  less  to  find 

A  soul  so  charming  from  a  stock  so  good  ; 

Thy  father  was  trausfus'd  into  thy  blood  ; 

So  wert  thou  bora  into  a  tuneful  strain, 

An  early  rich  and  inexhausted  vein. 

But  if  thy  pre-existing  soul 

Was  formed  at  first  with  myriads  more, 

It  did  thro'  all  the  mighty  poets  roll, 

Who  Greek  or  Latin  laurels  wore, 

And  was  that  Sappho  last  which  once  it  was  before. 

If  so,  then  cease  thy  flight,  O  hcav'n-born  mind ! 

Thou  hast  no  dross  to  purge  from  thy  rich  ore, 

Nor  can  thy  soul  a  fairer  mansion  find 

Than  was  the  beauteous  frame  she  left  behind  : 

Keturn  to  fill  or  mend  the  choir  of  thy  celestial  kind. 

III. 

May  we  presume  to  say  that  at  thy  birth 

New  joy  was  sprung  in  heav'n  as  well  as  here  on  earth  ? 

For  sure  the  milder  planets  did  combine 

On  thy  auspicious  horoscope  to  shine, 

And  e'en  the  most  malicious  were  in  trine. 

Thy  brother  angels  at  thy  birth' 

Strung  each  liis  lyre,  and  tun'd  it  high, 

That  all  the  people  of  the  sky 

Might  know  a  poetess  was  born  on  earth  ; 

And  then  if  ever  mortal  ears 

Had  heard  the  music  of  the  spheres, 


122  LITERAEY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

And  if  no  clus'tring  swarm  of  bees 

On  thy  sweet  mouth  distill'd  their  golden  clew, 

'T  was  that  such  vulgar  miracles 

Heav'n  had  not  leisure  to  renew  ; 

For  all  thy  bless'd  fraternity  of  love 

Solemniz'd  there  thy  birth,  and  kept  thy  holyday  above. 

IV. 

Oh  gracious  God  !  how  far  have  we 

Profan'd  thy  heav'nly  gift  of  poesy  ? 

Made  prostitute  and  profligate  the  muse, 

Debas'd  to  each  obscene  and  impious  use, 

Whose  harmony  was  first  ordain'd  above 

For  tongues  of  angels  and  for  hymns  of  love  ? 

Oh  wretched  we  !  why  were  we  hurried  down, 

This  lubrique  and  adult'rate  age 

(Nay,  added  fat  pollutions  of  our  own) 

T'  increase  the  steaming  ordures  of  the  stage  ? 

What  can  we  say  t'  excuse  our  second  fall  ? 

Let  this  thy  vestal,  heav'n  !  atone  for  all ; 

Her  Arethusian  streams  remain  unsoil'd, 

Unmix'd  with  foreign  filth,  and  undefil'd  ; 

Her  wit  was  more  than  man,  her  innocence  a  child. 

V. 

Art  she  had  none,  yet  wanted  none, 

For  nature  did  that  want  supply  ; 

So  rich  in  treasures  of  her  own, 

She  might  our  boasted  stores  defy  : 

Such  noble  vigour  did  her  verse  adorn, 

That  it  seem'd  borrow'd  where  't  was  only  born. 

Her  morals  too  were  in  her  bosom  bred, 

By  great  examples  daily  fed, 

What  in  the  best  of  books,  her  father's  life,  she  read. 

And  to  be  read  herself  she  need  not  fear ; 

Each  test,  and  ev'ry  light,  her  muse  will  bear, 

Tho'  Epictetus  with  his  lamp  were  there. 

E'en  love,  for  love  sometimes  her  muse  exprest, 

Was  but  a  lambent  flame  which  play'd  about  her  breast, 

Light  as  the  vapours  of  a  morning  dream  ; 

So  cold  herself,  while  she  such  warmth  exprest, 

'Twas  Cupid  bathing  in  Diana's  stream. 

VI. 

Born  to  the  spacious  empire  of  the  Nine, 

One  would  have  thought  she  should  have  been  content 

To  manage  well  that  mighty  government ; 

But  what  can  young  ambitious  souls  confine  ? 

To  the  next  realm  she  stretch'd  her  sway, 

For  painture  near  adjoining  lay, 

A  plenteous  province  and  alluring  prey. 


I.1TKKAUY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

A  Chamber  of  Dependent-it-*  was  iruin'd, 

(As  conquerors  will  never  want  prettn 

Wlu-ji  anuM,  to  justify  the  offence) 

And  the  whole  fief,  in  right  of  poetry,  she  claimed. 

The  country  open  luy  without  defence, 

For  poets  frequent  inroads  there  had  made, 

And  perfectly  could  represent 

The  shape,  the  face,  with  ev'ry  lineament, 

And  all  the  large  domains  which  the  dumb  sister  swayed, 

All  bow'd  beneath  her  government. 

Receiv'd  in  triumph  wheresoe'er  she  went, 

Her  pencil  drew  whate'er  her  soul  design'd, 

And  oft'  the  happy  draught  surpassed  the  image  in  her  mind. 

The  sylvan  scenes  of  herds  and  flocks, 

And  fruitful  plains  and  barren  rocks, 

Of  shallow  brooks  that  flow'd  so  clear,' 

The  bottom  did  the  top  appear  ; 

Of  deeper  too  and  ampler  floods, 

Which,  as  in  mirrors,  shew'd  the  woods  ; 

Of  lofty  trees,  with  sacred  shades, 

And  perspectives  of  pleasant  glades, 

Where  nymphs  of  brightest  form  appear, 

And  shaggy  Satyrs  standing  near, 

Which  them  at  once  admire  and  fear. 

The  ruins  too  of  some  majestic  piece, 

Boasting  the  pow'r  of  ancient  Rome  or  Greece, 

Whose  statues,  friezes,  columns,  broken  lie, 

And,  tho'  defaced,  the  wonder  of  the  eye ; 

What  nature,  art,  bold  fiction,  e'er  durst  frame, 

Her  forming  hand  gave  feature  to  the  name. 

So  strange  a  concourse  ne'er  was  seen  before, 

But  when  the  peopled  ark  the  whole  creation  bore. 

VII. 

The  scene  then  changed,  with  bold  erected  look 

Our  martial  king  the  fight  with  rev'reuce  strook  ; 

For,  not  content  t'  express  his  outward  part, 

Her  hand  called  out  the  image  of  his  heart : 

His  warlike  mind,  his  soul  devoid  of  fear, 

His  high-designing  thoughts  were  figured  there, 

As  when  by  magic  ghosts  are  made  appear. 

Our  Phoanix  queen  was  pourtrayed  too  so  bright, 

Beauty  alone  could  beauty  take  so  right : 

Her  dress,  her  shape,  her  matchless  grace, 

Were  all  observ'd,  as  well  as  heav'nly  face. 

With  such  a  peerless  majesty  she  stands, 

As  in  that  day  she  took  the  crown  from  sacred  hands  ; 

Before  a  train  of  heroines  was  seen 

In  beauty  foremost  as  in  rank  the  queen. 


124  LITEKAKY   WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND. 

Thus  nothing  to  her  genius  was  deny'd, 

But  like  a  ball  of  fire,  the  further  thrown, 

Still  with  a  greater  blaze  she  shone, 

And  her  bright  soul  broke  out  on  ev'ry  side. 

What  next  she  had  design'd  heav'n  only  knows  : 

To  such  immod'rate  growth  her  conquest  rose, 

That  fate  alone  its  progress  could  oppose. 

vm. 

Now  all  those  charms,  that  blooming  grace, 

The  well-proportion 'd  shape  and  beauteous  face, 

Shall  never  more  be  seen  by  mortal  eyes  ; 

In  earth  the  much-lamented  virgin  lies. 

Not  wit  nor  piety  could  fate  prevent ; 

Nor  was  the  cruel  destiny  content 

To  finish  all  the  murder  at  a  blow, 

To  sweep  at  once  her  life  and  beauty  too  ; 

But,  like  a  hardened  felon,  took  a  pride 

To  work  more  mischievously  slow, 

And  plunder'd  first,  and  then  destroy'd. 

A  double  sacrilege  on  things  divine, 

To  rob  the  relic  and  deface  the  shrine  ! 

But  thus  Orinda  died ; 

Heav'n  by  the  same  disease  did  both  translate  : 

As  equal  were  their  souls,  so  equal  was  their  fate. 

IX. 

Meantime  her  warlike  brother  on  the  seas 

His  waving  streamers  to  the  winds  displays, 

And  vows  for  his  return,  with  vain  devotion,  pays. 

Ah,  gen'rous  youth  !  that  wish  forbear, 

The  winds  too  soon  will  waft  thee  here  : 

Slack  all  thy  sails,  and  fear  to  come, 

Alas  !  thou  know'st  not  thou  art  wreck'd  at  home  ! 

No  more  shalt  thou  behold  thy  sister's  face, 

Thou  hast  already  had  her  last  embrace. 

But  look  aloft,  and  if  thou  kenn'st  from  far, 

Among  the  Pleiads  a  new-kindled  star, 

If  any  sparkles  than  the  rest  more  bright, 

T  is  she  that  shines  in  that  propitious  light. 

X. 

When  in  mid-air  the  golden  trump  shall  sound, 

To  raise  the  nations  under  ground  ; 

When  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 

The  judging  God  shall  close  the  book  of  fate, 

And  there  the  last  assizes  keep 

For  those  who  wake  and  those  who  sleep  ; 

When  rattling  bones  together  fly 

From  the  four  corners  of  the  sky  ; 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  125 

When  sinews  o'er  the  skeletons  are  spread, 

Those  cloth'd  with  flesh,  and  life  inspires  the  dead  : 

The  sacred  poets  first  shall  hear  the  sound, 

And  foremost  from  the  tomb  shall  bound, 

For  they  are  covered  with  the  lightest  ground  ; 

And  straight,  with  inborn  vigour,  on  the  wing, 

Like  mounting  lurks  to  the  new  morning  sing  : 

There  thou,  sweet  saint  !  before  the  quire  shalt  go, 

As  harbinger  of  heav'u,  the  way  to  show, 

The  way  which  thou  so  well  hast  learnt  below." 


MRS. 

Anne,  daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Lee,  of  Ditchley,  Oxford- 
shire, and  a  coheir  of  his  estate,  was  the  first  wife  of 
Thomas  Wharton,  Esq.,  afterwards  Marquis  of  Wharton. 
Some  of  her  letters  to  Bishop  Burnet  have  been  printed, 
and  twelve  of  the  Bishop's  to  her.  She  was  a  woman  of 
elegant  tastes  and  many  accomplishments.  Her  poetical 
productions  were  numerous,  consisting  chiefly  of  para- 
phrases on  passages  of  Scripture,  and  occasional  verses 
suggested  by  passing  events.  She  translated  from  Ovid 
the  *  Epistle  of  Penelope  to  Ulysses,'  incited,  probably,  by 
her  own  separation  from  a  beloved  husband,  while  she 
sojourned  in  the  south  of  Europe,  in  declining  health. 
She  returned  home  only  to  die,  expired  at  Adderbury, 
October  29,  1685,  and  was  buried  at  Winchinden.  Several 
of  her  poems  are  reprinted  in  the  '  Select  Collection'  of 
J.  Nichols,  1780.  The  amatory  verses  are  not  free  from 
the  coarseness  of  the  times  ;  the  paraphrases  are  made  in 
a  grave  and  reverent  style,  and  show  considerable  powers 
of  versification.  The  following  lines  afford  a  fair  speci- 
men of  her  productions  :  — 

ON  THE  SNUFF  OF  A  CANDLE.     MADE  IN  SICKNESS. 

"  See  there  the  taper's  dim  and  doleful  light, 

In  gloomy  waves  silently  rolls  about, 
And  represents  to  my  dim,  weary  sight, 
My  light  of  life,  almost  as  near  burnt  out. 


126         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Ah,  health  !  best  part  and  substance  of  our  joy, 

(For  without  thee  'tis  nothing  but  a  shade), 
Why  dost  thou  partially  thyself  employ, 

Whilst  thy  proud  foes  as  partially  invade  ? 
What  we  who  ne'er  enjoy  so  fondly  seek, 

Those  who  possess  thee  still  almost  despise  ; 
To  gain  immortal  glory,  raise  the  weak, 

Taught  by  their  former  want  thy  worth  to  prize. 
Dear  melancholy  muse,  my  constant  guide, 

Charm  this  coy  health  back  to  my  fainting  heart, 
Or  I'll  accuse  thee  of  vain-glorious  pride, 

And  swear  thou  dost  but  feign  the  moving  art. 
But  why  do  I  upbraid  thee,  gentle  muse  ? 

Who  for  all  sorrows  mak'st  me  some  amends, 
Alas !  our  sickly  minds  sometimes  abuse 

Our  best  physicians  and  our  dearest  friends/' 

Mr.  Noble  mentions  an  engraving  of  Mrs.  Wharton  in 
the  Houghton  Collection,  from  a  portrait  by  Lely. 

LUCY  MARCHIONESS  OF  WHARTON. 

Lucia,  or  Lucy,  daughter  of  Adam  Loftus,"  Viscount 
Lisburne,  was  the  second  wife  of  Thomas,  Marquis  of 
Wharton,  and  mother  of  Philip,  Duke  of  Wharton.  The 
Ely  pedigree,  given  by  Burke,  does  not  furnish  the  dates 
of  her  birth,  marriage,  or  death.  The  l  English  Cyclo- 
paedia' mentions  that  she  died  in  1716.  Mr.  Noble  notices 
an  engraving  of  her  from  a  portrait  by  Lely.  Three 
stanzas  of  four  lines  each,  addressed  '  To  Cupid,'  first  pub- 
lished with  the  poems  of  her  son,  and  reprinted  by  Nichols, 
vol.  v.,  pp.  10,  11,  in  1782,  have  sufficed  to  obtain  for  her  a 
literary  reputation. 

Merely  to  show  how  easily  in  those  days  a  woman  of 
rank  and  fashion  could  acquire  the  world's  praise,  these 
paltry  verses  are  inserted  here : — 

To  CUPID. 
"  Spite  of  thy  godhead,  powerful  love, 

I  will  my  torments  hide  ; 
For  what  avails,  if  life  must  prove 
A  sacrifice  to  pride  ? 


LITKUAKY    \\OMKN    <>K    ENGLAND.  I'JT 

Pride,  thou'rt  become  my  goddess  now, 

To  tbee  I'll  altars  rear  ; 
To  thec  each  morning  pay  my  vow, 

And  offer  every  tear. 
But,  oh  !  should  my  Philander 's  frown 

Once  take  your  injured  part, 
I  soon  should  cast  that  idol  down, 

And  offer  him  my  heart. 

APHARA  BERN. 

Descended  from  respectable  ancestors  in  the  city  of 
Canterbury,  the  father  of  Aphara  Behn,  whose  name  was 
Johnson,  obtained  through  his  kinsman,  Lord  Willoughby, 
the  appointment  of  Governor  of  Surinam  and  of  the  thirty- 
six  West  Indian  Islands,  and  embarked  with  his  family 
for  that  colony  when  Aphara  was  very  young.  General 
Johnson  died  upon  the  outward  passage,  but  his  widow 
and  family  arrived  in  safety,  and  took  up  their  residence 
in  Surinam.  Aphara  became  acquainted  there  with  the 
African  Prince  Oroonoko,  whose  extraordinary  story  she 
related  'in  a  novel,  once  celebrated,  but  now  only  recol- 
lected as  having  furnished  the  incidents  of  that  remarkable 
tragedy  by  Southerne,  in  which  the  slave-trade  was  for  the 
first  time  denounced  by  an  English  writer.  After  having 
spent  some  years  in  South  America,  Aphara  returned  to 
England,  and  married  Mr.  Behn,  an  eminent  merchant  of 
London.  King  Charles  II.  delighted  much  in  her  animated 
conversation,  and  in  the  accounts  she  gave  of  the  wonders 
of  Surinam,  and  he  employed  her  as  a  political  spy,  and 
sent  her  in  that  capacity  to  Antwerp.  On  her  passage 
back  to  England,  being  driven  upon  the  coast  for  several 
days  by  a  violent  tempest,  she  narrowly  escaped  perishing 
by  shipwreck.  Aphara  Behn  led  a  gay,  perhaps  a  licen- 
tious life,  and  after  a  long  illness  died,  April  16,  1689, 
and  was  buried  in  the  cloisters  of  Westminster  Abbey. 
She  translated  into  English  the  '  Reflections  and  Maxims' 


128         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

of  Francis,  Due  de  la  Rochefoucault,  and  Fontenelle's 
' History  of  Oracles'  and  ' Plurality  of  Worlds.'  She 
wrote  the  paraphrase  of  '^non's  Epistle  to  Paris/  in 
Dryden's  '  Ovid,'  a  great  many  verses  and  letters,  several 
histories  and  novels,  and  seventeen  successful  plays. 

According  to  Machiavelli,  the  secret  of  success  lies  in  the 
capability  of  adaptation  to  the  times.  The  licentious  inde- 
licacy of  Aphara  Behn's  lively  writings  insured  them  a 
favourable  reception,  both  upon  the  public  stage  and  in  the 
private  dwellings  of  that  fashionable  world  which  had 
Charles  II.  for  its  luminary.  Kobert  Chambers  aptly 
terms  Aphara  Behn  "a  female  Wycherley."  Her  name 
would  have  been  excluded  from  all  mention  in  these 
pages,  had  it  not  been  necessary  to  mark  the  true  state  of 
female  literature  at  this  period. 

Aphara  Behn  is  the  first  English  authoress  upon  record 
whose  life  was  openly  wrong,  and  whose  writings  were 
obscene. 

In  all  ages  when  morality  prevailed,  the  favourite  narra- 
tive and  dramatic  fictions  represented  the  heroes  either  as 
virtuous  characters  or  as  deservedly  punished  for  evil 
deeds.  Base,  indeed,  had  the  condition  of  society  become 
when  the  heroes  of  the  English  stage  and  of  the  fashionable 
novels  were  attractively  displayed  as  triumphant  libertines. 

A  complete  list  of  her  published  works  is  given  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  'Biographia  Britannica,'  pp.  667-8, 
notes  F,  G,  and  H. 

An  engraving  of  her,  by  White,  and  a  copy  from  it  by  Cole, 
are  mentioned  by  Granger,  who  says  nothing  of  a  painted 
portrait. 

ELIZABETH  WALKER. 

Elizabeth,  eldest  daughter  of  John  Sadler,  citizen  and 
grocer  of  London,  was  born  in  Bucklersbury,  July  12, 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  129 

1623.  In  1650,  she  married  Anthony  Walker,  D.D.,  and, 
jil'ttT  forty  years  of  domestic  happiness,  died  February  23, 
I '  i!  >0.  Mrs.  Walker  left  behind  her  a  manuscript  volume  of 
*  Instructions'  for  her  daughters,  and  *  Memorials  of  God's 
good  Providence,  towards  herself  and  family;'  copious 
extracts  from  which  were  engrafted  in  the  *  Biography '  of 
her  life  subsequently  published  by  her  husband. 

LADY  GETHIN. 

Grace,  daughter  of  Sir  George  Norton,  of  Abbot's  Leigh, 
in  the  county  of  Somerset,  was  born  in  1676.  She  was 
very  carefully  educated,  and  showed  great  aptness  for  the 
acquisition  of  valuable  knowledge.  She  was  married  early 
to  Sir  Richard  Gethin,  Bart.,  of  Gethin's  Grot,  in  Ireland ; 
died  October  11,  1697,  in  the  twenty-first  year  of  her 
age,  and  was  buried  at  Hollingbourn,  in  Kent.*  A  monu- 
ment, with  her  effigy,  was  erected  in  Westminster  Abbey ; 
and,  further  to  perpetuate  her  memory,  her  parents  pro- 
vided that  a  sermon  should  be  preached  there  yearly  on 
Ash  Wednesday,  for  ever.  The  contents  of  her  common- 
place books  and  other  papers  were  published  after  her 
death,  under  the  title  of  *  Reliquiae  Gethinianae.'  Ballard 
gives  extracts,  which  he  trustingly  supposes  to  be  original ; 
they  are,  however,  the  undoubted  property  of  Lord  Bacon 
and  of  some  other  authors ;  and  the  sole  merit  of  the 
work  would  appear,  from  the  table  of  contents,  to  consist 
in  judicious  selection. 

Ballard's  praise  of  Lady  Gethin's  character  rests  upon  a 
surer  basis  than  his  estimate  of  her  literary  works.  He 
says,  "  She  soon  discerned  that  true  Christian  virtue  is  the 
most  desirable  attainment  of  which  we  are  capable,  and 
that  the  best  use  that  can  be  made  of  a  superior  under- 

*  Noble's  Continuatiou  of  Granger,  vol.  i.,  p,  281. 

K 


130  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

standing  is  to  enable  us  to  acquire  further  degrees  of  real 
goodness."  An  engraving  from  Dickson's  portrait  of  her  is 
prefixed  to  the  *  Reliquiae  Gethinianse.' 

LADY  HALKET. 

Anne,  daughter  of  Mr.  Eobert  Murray,  preceptor  to 
Prince  Charles,  was  born  in  London,  January  4,  1622. 
She  was  carefully  educated,  and  excelled  in  divinity, 
physic,  and  surgery.  In  1656,  she  married  Sir  John 
Halket,  and,  after  an  exemplary  and  useful  life,  she  died 
in  1699.  Twenty-one  volumes  of  '  Religious  Meditations' 
are  attributed  to  her,  but  probably  most  of  them  were 
mere  transcripts ;  for  the  tabular  view  of  the  contents  of 
the  Eighth  Book,  as  copied  by  Ballard  from  the  catalogue 
subjoined  to  the  published  account  of  her  life,  accords  pre- 
cisely with  the  Week's  directions  of  Vices  to  be  opposed, 
and  Virtues  to  be  practised,  in  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor's 
'  Guide  to  Devotion,'  Part  I.  of  his  '  Golden  Grove.' 

Taking  a  retrospective  view  of  the  preceding  pages,  it 
may  confidently  be  affirmed  that  the  well-educated  pos- 
sessors of  the  finest  natural  abilities  were,  with  few  excep- 
tions, exemplary  in  the  discharge  of  practical  duties,  and 
lived  in  true  piety  to  God.  It  may  also  be  remarked  that 
the  greater  number  of  those  literary  Englishwomen  were 
married,  and  many  of  them  more  than  once ;  from  whence 
it  would  appear  that  their  mental  pursuits  had  not  weak- 
ened their  domestic  affections.  The  followers  in  their  track 
will  be  found  to  add  instances  in  further  confirmation  of 
these  statements.  In  all  biographies,  the  main  things  to 
be  considered,  both  by  writers  and  readers,  are,  the  train- 
ing-ground of  character,  the  arena  of  life's  struggle,  and 
the  subsequent  results.  In  the  present  work,  the  literary 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  1  .'U 

results  are  the  more  especial  objects  of  attention;  but, 
even  in  their  just  estimate,  the  moral  and  religious  effects 
of  such  preparatory  discipline  must  be  included,  for  earnest- 
ness of  intention  and  elevation  of  aim-  give  vigorous  health 
and  strength  to  intellect. 

In  the  foregoing  chapters  mention  has  been  made  of  the 
principal  English  authoresses  who  died  before  the  year 
1700.  Henceforth  the  more  varied  products  of  the  fertile 
and  widening  fields  of  literature  will  render  it  necessary 
that  the  increasing  numbers  of  its  female  cultivators  should 
be  divided  and  classified.  From  this  period  more  abundant 
materials  are  also  supplied  to  the  biographer,  and  better 
opportunities  afforded  of  discriminating  and  fixing  the 
lights  and  shades  of  individual  character,  and  of  comparing 
and  contrasting  the  mental  productions  of  women  of  genius. 
Each  generation,  like  every  floral  season,  may  be  said  to 
have  a  prevalent  colour  of  its  own ;  but,  as  the  same  dye 
produces  different  tints  upon  textures  of  silk,  wool,  and 
cotton,  so  variously  does  the  secular  influence  of  opinion 
affect  and  tincture  human  minds. 

Approaching  more  nearly  to  our  own  times,  we  are 
enabled  more  readily  to  realize  the  habits  of  life  and  of 
thought  and  feeling,  which  belong  to  our  more  immediate 
predecessors,  and,  connecting  their  literary  utterances  with 
their  personal  experience,  to  yield  up  our  sympathies,  and 
lay  our  hearts  and  understandings  open  to  their  teachings ; 
for  teach  they  do,  whether  intentionally  or  not,  both  by  the 
example  of  their  actions  and  the  register  of  their  opinions. 

Verse  constitutes  the  earliest  literature  of  all  nations, 
and  through  all  ages  it  embodies  the  highest.  The 
writings  of  women,  as  compared  with  those  of  men,  are 
but  as  the  satellite  to  the  planet,  imparting  little  light 
and  deriving  much;  nevertheless,  they  have  their  own 

K2 


132  LITEEAKY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

peculiar  utility,  and  their  own  soft  glory.  Intuitive  fineness 
of  perception,  rapidity  of  apprehension,  tenderness,  deli- 
cacy, and  a  certain  persuasive  sweetness,  are  general  attri- 
butes of  women;  and  these  qualities,  conjoined  with  a 
sound  understanding,  high  imaginative  faculties,  and  an 
enlightened  conscience,  finding  graceful  and  harmonious 
expression,  breathe  genial,  refreshing,  and  holy  influences 
upon  many  a  careworn  heart. 

While  intermingled  with  the  productions  of  manly  intel- 
lects, in  the  general  growth  of  a  nation's  literature,  women's 
writings  and  their  elegant  characteristics  lie  overshadowed 
and  unremarked;  mere  speedwells  and  eyebright  in  a 
forest  of  stately  trees,  requiring  separate  consideration  and 
comparison  among  themselves.  This  consideration  and 
this  comparison  it  is  a  principal  object  of  the  present  work 
to  afford ;  not  under  the  fallacious  impression  that  pretty 
herbs  can  rival  giant  oaks  and  lofty  pines  in  fitness  for  ship- 
building, but  simply  taking  them  for  what  they  are,  and 
pointing  out  their  real  use  and  value. 

It  may  here  be  not  inappositely  remarked  that,  up  to  the 
termination  of  the  seventeenth  century,  no  Englishwoman 
had  surpassed  Margaret  Koper  in  scholastic  attainments, 
Mary  Sydney,  Countess  of  Pembroke  in  poetry,  and  Lucy 
Hutchinson  in  prose.  They  stand  as  tide-marks,  by  which 
the  subsequent  rise  and  fall  of  feminine  abilities  may  be 
ascertained. 

Warton  has  treated  the  history  of  English  poetry  and  of 
English  literature  as  identical;  and  such  in  the  early 
periods  of  all  languages  will  their  poetry  and  literature  be 
found ;  the  former  representing  at  once  the  most  excellent 
form  and  the  most  essential  qualities  of  the  latter,  in 
which  it  is  comprised.  But  after  long  ages  of  cultivation, 
learning,  social  knowledge,  and  scientific  researches  divide 


LITERAHY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.        133 

the  republic  of  letters  into  many  separate  states  or  regions, 
marked  by  distinct  diversities  of  nature  and  aspect.  Among 
them  poetry  is  accounted  merely  as  one ;  which,  although 
inherently  superior  to  the  rest,  yet  being  degraded  by  the 
occasional  inferiority  of  its  cultivators,  submits  sometimes 
to  successful,  and  almost  triumphant  rivalry. 

To  the  poetesses  of  England  the  remainder  of  this 
volume  will  be  exclusively  appropriated,  their  respective 
prose  writings  being  included  in  the  review  of  their  pro- 
ductions; the  appellation  of  poetesses  being  limited  to 
those  in  whom  the  faculty  of  composition  in  verse  obvi- 
ously forms  either  the  highest  original  exercise  of  their 
minds,  or  possesses  the  genuine  characteristics  of  true 
poetry. 


134  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTEE    VII. 

THE  POETESSES. 
A  Dissertation  upon  Poetry — its  nature  and  uses. 


'  Not  empire  to  the  rising  suu, 
By  valour,  conduct,  fortune  won  ; 
Not  highest  wisdom  in  debates, 
For  framing  laws  to  govern  states ; 
Not  skill  in  sciences  profound, 
So  large  to  grasp  the  circle  round  ; 
Such  heavenly  influence  require 
As  how  to  strike  the  Muses'  lyre." 

DEAN  SWIFT'S  •  Khapsody  on  Poetry.' 


ALTHOUGH  the  ancient  Greeks  attributed  to  the  Muses  not 
only  the  suggestive  impulses  of  poetry  and  rhetoric,  but 
those  of  almost  all  the  fine  and  liberal  arts,  yet  their  bards 
describe  the  most  distinguishing  and  precious  prerogatives 
of  the  golden-sandalled  daughters  of  Jupiter  and  Mnemo- 
syne as  consisting  in  the  inspiration  of  heart-ennobling 
and  melodious  verse. 

Hesiod,  in  his  f  Theogony,'  exhibits  them  first  in  the  per- 
formance of  their  highest  functions,  singing  choral  hymns 
to  their  heavenly  Father,  and  to  the  subordinate  "  givers 
of  blessings,"  and  then  as  exemplifying  celestial  govern- 
ment and  control  over  the  heroic  actions  of  men,  while  by 
such  strains — 

"  To  evils,  they 

Yield  an  oblivious  balm  ;  to  torturing  cares, 

Best." 

He  records  that  the  Muses  dwell  "  in  beautified  abodes," 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  135 

that  the  Graces  have  their  mansions  near,  and  that  those 
earthly  beings  are  blessed  whom  they  love.  He  seems, 
while  bending  over  his  laurel-bough,  to  have  imputed 
every  grace  of  movement,  and  every  harmony  of  sound,  in 
nature  and  in  art,  to  their  influence  ;  while  — 


in  their  beauteous  voice  and  song 
Unperisking,  far  round  the  dusky  earth 
Rings  with  their  hymning  voices,  and  beneath 
Their  many  rustling  feet  a  pleasant  sound 
Ariseth,  as  they  take  their  onward  way 
To  their  own  lather's  presence."* 

The  fragment  of  Sappho,  which  begins  — 

"  Ye  muses,  ever  fair  and  young,  "f 

and  lines  from  many  other  Greek  poets,  might  here  be 
adduced  to  prove  that  those  enthroned  bards  were  so  well 
aware  of  a  truth  enunciated  by  Wordsworth,  that  his  words, 
instead  of  being  prompted  by  original  reflection,  might 
pass  for  a  plain  inference  drawn  from  their  works  —  "  Fancy 
is  given  to  quicken  and  to  beguile  the  temporal  part  of 
our  nature,  Imagination  to  incite  and  to  support  the 
eternal."  | 

The  natural  delight  of  human  beings  in  acquiring  know- 
ledge, and  in  drawing  inferences  from  the  contemplation 
of  objects  of  sense,  is  considered  by  Aristotle  as  suggesting 
the  origin  of  all  the  imitative  arts,  and  as  combining  with 
the  spontaneous  pleasure  taken  in  rhythm  and  melodious 
sound  to  arouse  into  action  the  poetic  faculty.  His  treatise 
on  '  The  Poetic  '  does  not  explain  its  essence,  but  merely 
defines  the  proprieties  of  its  principal  forms.  The  Ancient 
British  bards,  without  defining  poetry,  gave  many  ad- 
mirable precepts  for  its  regulation.  One  Triad  declares  : 
"Three  things  should  all  poetry  be  —  thoroughly  erudite, 
thoroughly  animated,  and  thoroughly  natural.' 

*  Elton's  Translation.  t  Fawkes's  Translation. 

Preface  to  the  first  volume  of  his  Work.-;,  editions  iSl.'t  ;m<l 


136  LITERAEY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  dissertation  of  Imlac,  in  the  10th  chapter  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  'Basselas,'  is  an  admirable,  though  an  uninten- 
tional commentary  upon  the  injunction  that  all  poetry 
should  be  "  thoroughly  erudite."  That  it  should  likewise 
be  "thoroughly  animated,"  full  of  heart,  and  soul,  and 
spirit;  and  "thoroughly  natural,"  —  simple,  unaffected, 
unconstrained,  and  always  true  to  nature  and  to  human 
feeling — were  facts  which  that  eminent  critic,  trammelled 
as  he  was  by  the  artificial  system  of  his  age,  failed  to  re- 
cognise in  theory,  although  he  sometimes  practically 
evinced  a  just  sense  of  their  force. 

Among  English  scholars,  at  the  period  of  the  revival  of 
classical  literature,  to  translate  euphonically  must  have 
been  deemed  a  skilful  feat ;  and  consequently  the  spirit 
and  the  matter  of  Greek  poetry  excited  comparatively  less 
attention  than  its  rhythm.  Under  this  impression,  Put- 
tenham  defined  poetry  to  be  "  a  skill  to  speak  and  write 
harmonically ;"  and  verse  to  be  "  a  kind  of  musical  utter- 
ance, by  reason  of  a  certain  congruity  of  sounds  pleasing  to 
the  ear."  Hence  it  would  appear  that  he  thought  them  iden- 
tical, and  did  not  recognise  what  the  Welsh  bards  call  the 
Awen,  or  poetic  inspiration.  It  was  the  mere  voice  and 
rhythm  which  he  noticed,  not  "  those  ultimate  secretions," 
as  Sir  James  Stephen  terms  them,  "  of  the  deepest  thoughts 
and  the  purest  feelings,  in  which  the  essence  of  poetry 
consists/'  * 

Craik  says,  "  Passion  expressing  itself  in  verse,  is  what 
is  properly  called  poetry."  t 

This  definition  is  too  narrow.  Verse  vivified  by  passion 
is  undoubtedly  poetry :  but  there  are  kinds  of  poetry  in 
which  passion  is  not  a  necessary  element. 

The  most  eloquent  of  women,  writing   under  German 

*  Essays  in  •  Ecclesiastical  Biography,'  vol.  ii.,  p  59. 
t  'Sketches  of  the  History  of  Literature  and  Learning  in  England,' 
vol.  iii.,  p.  161. 


LITKKAKY    \\  <  >K    ENGLAND.  137 

iiilluciicos,  with  the  impulsive  felicity  of  French  utterance, 
declares : — "  II  est  difficile  de  dire  ce  qui  n'est  pas  de  la 
po6sie ;  niais,  si  Ton  veut  comprendre  ce  qu'elle  est,  il  faut 
appeler  a  son  secours  les  impressions  qu'  excitent  une  belle 
contr.V,  une  musique  harinonieuse,  le  regard  d'un  objet 
ch£ri,  et  par-dessus  tout,  un  sentiment  religieux  qui  nous 
fait  e'prouver  en  nous-memes  la  presence  de  la  Divinjte."  * 
— It  is  difficult  to  say  what  is  not  poetry ;  but  if  any  one 
desires  to  comprehend  what  it  is,  it  will  be  necessary  for 
him  to  call  to  his  aid  the  impressions  excited  by  a  beautiful 
country,  harmonious  music,  the  sight  of  a  beloved  object, 
and,  above  all,  that  religious  sentiment  which  makes  us 
inwardly  conscious  of  the  presence  of  God. 

The  soul  of  every  poet  must  re-echo  these  sentiments : 
therefore,  if  Mr.  Craik  uses  the  word  "passion"  as  a 
synonym  of  "enlivened  imagination,"  his  definition  may 
be  accepted ;  though  Dr.  Blair  gives  a  closer  approxima- 
tion to  the  indefinable  truth,  when  stating  it  to  be  "  the 
language  of  passion,  -or  of  enlivened  imagination,  formed 
most  commonly  into  regular  numbers,"  While  cavilling 
thus  at  the  mere  words  of  Professor  Craik's  definition,  it  is, 
however,  cordially  acknowledged  that  the  criticisms  inter- 
spersed through  his  '  Sketches '  sufficiently  attest  his  wride, 
warm  sense  of  every  form  of  real  poetry. 

Poetry  essentially  consists  of  fine  thoughts  and  melodious 
utterance ;  and  its  mundane  materials  are — the  appear- 
ances of  nature,  the  records  of  history,  the  events  of  life, 
and  the  internal  experience  of  the  soul. 

Bishop  Lowth,  in  his  Introductory  Lecture  on  the 
^  Sacred  Poetry  of  the  Hebrews/  remarks,  that  "  However 
ages  and  nations  may  have  differed  in  their  reb'gious  senti- 
ments and  opinions,  in  this,  at  least,  we  find  them  all 

*  Madame  de  Stucl,  '  L'Allemagnc,'  vol.  i.,  2dc  purtic,  t-luip.  x. 


138  LITEEARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

agreed  that  the  mysteries  of  their  devotion  were  celebrated 
in  verse."  He  adds: — "Of  this  origin  poetry  even  yet 
exhibits  no  obscure  indications,  since  she  ever  embraces  a 
divine  and  sacred  subject  with  a  kind  of  filial  tenderness 
and  affection.  To  the  sacred  haunts  of  religion,  she 
delights  to  resort  as  to  her  native  soil ;  and  there  she  most 
willingly  inhabits,  and  there  she  nourishes  in  all  her  pris- 
tine beauty  and  vigour."* 

To  the  Lectures  above  quoted,  and  to  Dean  Milman's 
'  History  of  the  Jews,'  the  reader  is  referred  for  some 
admirable  remarks  upon  the  magnificent  poems  of  Deborah, 
Miriam,  and  other  inspired  women  of  Israel. 

'  Poetry  has  been  divided  into  Pastoral,  Lyric,  Didactic, 
Descriptive,  Epic,  and  Dramatic ;  and  still  more  simply 
and  justly  into  Narrative,  Dramatic,  and  Allegorical ;  or 
Narrative,  Dramatic,  and  Lyric. 

After  having  analyzed  the  nature  of  Narrative  and 
Dramatic  Poetry,  and  eulogized  their  merits,  Lord  Bacon 
says : — "  But  Allegorical  Poetry  excels  the  others,  and 
appears  a  solemn,  sacred  thing,  which  religion  itself  gene- 
rally makes  use  of  to  preserve  an  intercourse  between 
divine  and  human  things. "t 

He  alludes  to  the  fables  of  heathen  mythology  as  sound- 
ing "  like  a  soft  whisper  from  the  traditions  of  more  ancient 
nations,  conveyed  through  the  flutes  of  the  Grecians." 

Dr.  Latham  has  carefully  examined  the  gradual  forma- 
tion of  the  English  language,  and  written  a  treatise  which 
may  be  said  to  contain  its  geology.  Thomas  Warton  has 
widely  and  diligently  explored,  as  it  were,  the  oceanic 
exhalations,  wafted  showers,  and  mountain  springs  of 
English  literature.  Percy,  Ellis,  Kitson,  and  others,  have 

*  Gregory's  Translation. 

t  '  Advancement  of  Learning,'  book  ii. 


LITEKAUY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

acted  ;is  pioneers  t<»  ,t   liost  of  succeeding  inquirers,  ex- 
aminers, and  critics. 


likr  tin  .silent  dial's  power, 
To  which  supernal  light  is  given 
To  measure  inspiration's  hour, 
And  tell  its  height  in  heaven," 

belonged  to  Thomas  Campbell,  who,  in  his  admirable 
Essay,  has  traced  English  poetry  from  obscure  and  various 
sources  through  successive  ages,  just  as  he  would  have 
followed  the  brooks  and  rivulets  which  steal,  ripple,  and 
rush  through  his  native  region,  and,  flowing  downward, 
form  together  a  great  navigable  river.  In  making  this 
survey  he  pauses  to  admire  the  peculiar  beauty  of  each 
fount  and  tributary  stream,  the  sinuosities  of  its  course, 
the  tincture  of  its  soil,  the  flowers  of  its  banks,  the  forms 
and  hues  of  earth  and  sky  reflected  on  its  surface,  and 
rises  into  rapture  as  he  contemplates  the  glory  of  the 
augmenting  waters  rolling  their  flood  onward  to  futurity. 

Yet,  while  observant  of  the  stream  and  its  tutelaries,  he 
overlooks  the  Naiades.  Among  the  one  hundred  and 
seventy  "British  Poets"  whom  he  notices,  there  is  only 
one  woman,  Catherine  Philips. 

Dr.  Johnson  admits  not  one  into  the  society  of  his  fifty- 
two  "  English  Poets."  Nevertheless,  among  the  omitted 
poetesses  are  some  whose  works  will  be  held  in  honour 
when  many  of  the  names  placed  by  those  eminent  critics 
upon  the  bead-roll  of  fame  shall  have  dropped  for  ever  out 
of  remembrance. 

Never  were  the  true  objects  of  poetic  powers  more  accu- 
rately or  more  magnificently  set  forth  than  by  him,  who 
in  after  years,  left  to  posterity  the  highest  and  most  com- 
plete examples  in  illustration  of  his  own  precepts  —  John 
Milton  :  —  "  These  abilities,  wheresoever  they  be  found,  are 
the  inspired  gift  of  God,  rarely  bestowed,  but  yet  to  some 


140  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

(though  most  abuse)  in  every  nation,  and  are  of  power, 
beside  the  office  of  a  pulpit,  to  imbreed  and  cherish  in  a 
great  people  the  seeds  of  virtue  and  public  civility,  to  allay 
the  perturbations  of  the  mind,  and  set  the  affections  in 
right  tune,  to  celebrate  in  glorious  and  lofty  hymns  the 
throne  and  equipage  of  God's  almightiness,  and  what  He 
works,  and  what  He  suffers  to  be  wrought  with  high  pro- 
vidence in  His  church ;  to  sing  victorious  agonies  of  mar- 
tyrs and  saints,  the  deeds  and  triumphs  of  just  and  pious 
nations  doing  valiantly  through  faith  against  the  enemies 
of  Christ ;  to  deplore  the  general  relapses  of  kingdoms  and 
states  from  justice  and  God's  true  worship.  Lastly,  what- 
soever in  religion  is  holy  and  sublime,  in  virtue  amiable  or 
grave ;  whatsoever  hath  passion  or  admiration  in  all  the 
changes  of  that  which  is  called  fortune  from  without,  or 
the  wily  subtleties  and  refluxes  of  man's  thoughts  from 
within  ;  all  these  things  with  a  solid  and  treatable  smooth- 
ness to  point  out  and  describe.  Teaching  over  the  whole 
book  of  sanctity  and  virtue,  through  all  the  instances  of 
example,  with  such  delight,  to  those  especially  of  soft  and 
delicious  temper,  who  will  not  so  much  as  look  upon  Truth 
herself  unless  they  see  her  elegantly  dressed  ;  that  whereas 
the  paths  of  honesty  and  good  life  appear  now  rugged  and 
difficult,  though  they  be,  indeed,  easy  and  pleasant,  they 
will  then  appear  to  all  men  both  easy  and  pleasant,  though 
they  were  rugged  and  difficult  indeed."  * 

It  is  mortifying'  to  recognize  the  historic  fact  that,  after 
the  exposition  of  these  unquestionable  canons  of  true 
poetry,  and  the  exhibition  of  their  worthy  exemplars,  there 
followed  the  long  tyranny  of  pert  mediocrity  and  profligate 
folly.  The  comic  branch  of  the  .dramatic  poetry  of  the 
Restoration  has  been  deservedly  satirized  by  the  masterly 

*  '  Keasou  of  Church  Government,'  book  ii. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  141 

lunid  of  Lord  Macaulay,  in  his  Essay  entitled  *  Leigh 
Hunt.'  Nothing  can  more  strikingly  exhibit  the  vicious 
morality  of  any  civilized  generation  of  human  beings  than 
thr  general  desecration  of  holy  things  to  profane  uses. 
Poetry  represents  the  highest  forms  of  thought,  and 

"  As  a  man  thinketh,  so  is  he." 

From  Waller  to  Pope  all  our  poetic  streams  are  rendered 
more  or  less  turbid  by  the  impurity  of  their  channels. 
Perhaps  those  writers  who  resist  the  evil,  prove  its  exist- 
ence as  strongly  as  its  perpetrators,  not  only  by  direct  and 
condemnatory  exposure,  but  by  the  sullied  brightness  of 
their  own  golden  armour. 

The  production  of  poetry  by  individual  minds  is  usually 
the  result  of  strong  but  subsiding  emotion :  it  resembles 
the  swelling  waves  which  succeed  the  storm  at  sea,  and 
cast  rainbow- prisms  upon  the  beach;  it  resembles  the 
re-appearing  sunshine,  after  clouds  of  gloom,  exhaling  the 
soft,  sweet  moisture  from  the  refreshed  earth.  As  it  is 
with  one  author,  so  is  it  with  the  aggregate  of  authors ; 
and  great  political  commotions,  ending  in  public  security, 
have  generally  called  forth  into  successful  exercise  the 
abilities  of  many  minds.  The  "  sun-bursts,"  as  they  have 
been  beautifully  called  by  Campbell,  are  few,  but  glorious, 
in  our  national  literature. 

In  poetry  may  be  perceived  the  peculiar  character  of 
the  author,  the  principles  by  which  he  is  actuated,  the 
habits  of  his  daily  life,  the  knowledge  which  he  possesses, 
the  thoughts  which  direct,  and  the  feelings  which  agitate 
him ;  the  social  spirit  of  the  age,  and  its  influence  upon  his 
ideas,  and  upon  their  mode  of  expression. 

In  poetry  may  most  advantageously  be  studied  the 
variations  of  language,  the  precise  periodic  meanings  of 


142  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

words,  their  just  appropriations  to  certain  ideas,  and  their 
multiplied  and  flexible  capabilities  of  expansion  under 
differing  arrangements  of  situation  and  combination. 

In  poetry  may  be  discerned  a  compendium  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  age,  a  reflection  of  its  manners,  and  the  essence 
of  its  spirit. 

The  elegant  pen  of  Eichard  Price  has  well  declared 
that — "  Though  poetry  be  not  the  child  of  learning,  it  is 
modified  in  every  age  by  the  current  knowledge  of  the 
country ;  and,  as  an  imitative  art,  it  is  always  either  bor- 
rowing from  the  imagery  of  existing  models,  or  wrestling 
with  the  excellencies  which  distinguish  them."  * 

The  women  of  every  age  take  its  spirit  from  the  men, 
and  their  share  in  the  national  poetry  is  like  their  part  in 
a  concert,  to  which  men's  voices  give  fulness  and  power, 
and  of  which  men  are  the  musical  composers  and  directors. 

*  Preface  to  Warton's  '  History  of  English  Poetry.' 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  143 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE   POETESSES. 
A.D.  1700-1725. 

Indy  Chudleigh  —  Mary  Monk  —  The  Countess  of  Winchelsea  —  De  La 
Riviere  Manley. 


"  But  true  it  is,  the  generous  mind, 
By  candour  swayed,  by  taste  refined, 
Will  nought  but  vice  disdain  ; 
Nor  will  the  breast  where  fancy  glows 
Deem  every  flower  a  weed  that  blows 
Amid  the  desert  plain." — SHENSTONE. 


MARY  LADY  CHUDLEIGH. 

MARY,  daughter  of  Richard  Lee,  Esq.,  of  Winslade,  in  the 
county  of  Devon,  was  born  in  the  year  1656 ;  she  married 
Sir  George  Chudleigh,  Bart.,  of  Ashton,  in  the  same 
county,  and  died  in  1710.  Her  published  works  were 
*  The  Ladies'  Defence ;'  '  Poems  on  several  Occasions,'  of 
which  the  third  edition  appeared  in  1722;  and  '  Essays 
upon  several  Subjects  in  Prose  and  Verse,'  1710.  She 
left  in  manuscript  two  tragedies,  two  operas,  a  masque, 
a  Versified  Paraphrase  of  Lucian's  Dialogues,  and  other 
pieces,  none  worthy  of  quotation. 

MRS.  MONK. 

Mary,  second  daughter  of  Robert  Molesworth,  who  long 
filled  the  office  of  English  ambassador  at  the  court  of 
Denmark,  and  was  created  a  viscount  in  1716,  became  the 


144  LITEEAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

wife  of  George  Monk,  Esq.,  and  died  in  the  flower  of  her 
age  in  1715.  Her  poems  were  published  in  the  following 
year,  with  a  dedication  from  her  father's  pen  to  Caroline, 
Princess  of  Wales.  The  title  of  the  volume  is  '  Marinda, 
Poems  and  Translations  upon  several  occasions.'  Lord 
Molesworth  introduces  its  contents  with  the  following 
remarkable  paragraph  :— 

"  Most  of  them  are  the  product  of  the  leisure  hours  of  a 
young  gentlewoman  lately  dead,  who,  in  a  remote  country 
retirement,  without  any  assistance  but  that  of  a  good 
library,  and  without  omitting  the  daily  care  due  to  a  large 
family,  not  only  perfectly  acquired  the  several  languages 
here  made  use  of,  but  the  good  morals  and  principles  con- 
tained in  those  books,  so  as  to  put  them  in  practice,  as 
well  during  her  life  and  languishing  sickness  as  at  the 
hour  of  her  death;  in  short,  she  died  not  only  like  a 
Christian,  but  a  Koman  lady,  and  so  became  at  once  the 
object  of  the  grief  and  comfort  of  her  relations.  As  much 
as  I  am  obliged  to  be  sparing  in  commending  what  belongs 
to  me,  I  cannot  forbear  thinking  some  of  these  circum- 
stances uncommon  enough  to  be  taken  notice  of.  I  loved 
her  more  because  she  deserved  it  than  because  she  was  mine, 
and  I  cannot  do  greater  honour  to  her  memory  than  by 
consecrating  her  labours,  or  rather  her  diversions,  to  your 
Koyal  Highness,  as  we  found  most  of  them  in  her  escri- 
toire after  her  death  written  with  her  own  hand ;  little 
expecting,  and  as  little  desiring,  the  public  should  have  an 
opportunity  either  of  applauding  or  condemning  them."  * 

Many  of  her  pieces  are  translations  from  the  Italian  of 

Tasso,   Petrarch,   and  Guarini,  and  a  few  from    Spanish 

authors.     Her  original  poems  are  most  of  them  sullied  by 

the  vicious  habits  of  her  time,  which  so  obscured  the  moral 

*  Ballard,  p.  289. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  145 

perceptions  even  of  the  pure  in  heart  as  to  permit  the 
familiar  use  of  indelicate  allusions.  The  lines  addressed 
to  her  husband  from  her  death-bed  at  Bath,  fully  justify, 
however,  her  father's  tender  encomium : — 

••  Thou,  who  dost  all  my  worldly  thoughts  employ, 
Thou  pleasing  source  of  all  my  earthly  joy  ; 
Thou  tenderost  husband  and  thou  dearest  friend, 
To  thee  this  first,  this  last  adieu  I  send. 
At  length,  the  conqueror  death  asserts  his  right, 
And  will  for  ever  veil  me  from  thy  sight, 
He  woos  me  to  him  with  a  cheerful  grace, 
And  not  one  terror  clouds  his  meagre  face  : 
He  promises  a  lasting  rest  from  pain, 
And  shows  that  all  life's  fleeting  joys  are  vain  : 
The  eternal  scenes  of  heaven  he  sets  in  view, 
And  tells  me  that  no  other  joys  are  true. 
But  love,  fond  love,  would  yet  resist  his  power, 
Would  fain  awhile  defer  the  parting  hour. 
He  brings  thy  mourning  image  to  my  eyes, 
And  would  obstruct  my  journey  to  the  skies. 
But  say,  thou  dearest,  thou  unwearied  friend, 
Say,  should' st  thou  grieve  to  see  my  sorrows  end  ? 
Thou  know'st  a  painful  pilgrimage  I've  passed, 
And  should'st  thou  grieve  that  rest  is  come  at  last  ? 
Bather  rejoice  to  see  me  shake  off  life, 
And  die,  as  I  have  lived,  thy  faithful  wife  !  " 

ANNE  COUNTESS  OF  WINCHELSEA. 

Anne,  daughter  of  Sir  William  Kingsmill,  Knight,  of 
Sidmonton,  in  the  county  of  Southampton,  became  Maid- 
of-Honour  to  Mary  of  Modena,  when  Duchess  of  York. 
Neither  the  year  of  her  birth,  nor  that  of  her  Court  ap- 
pointment, nor  that  of  her  marriage  with  the  Hon.  Heneage 
Finch,  are  recorded  by  her  biographer.  The  appointment 
must  have  been  in  or  after  1673,  the  year  of  Mary  of 
Modena's  marriage.  The  Hon.  Heneage  Finch  is  dis- 
tinctly stated  by  Ballard,  on  the  authority  of  *  The 
General  Dictionary/  "  to  have  been  in  his  father's  lifetime 
Gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber  to  the  Duke  of  York." 
Heneage,  second  Earl  of  Winchelsea,  died  in  1(>89 ;  but 

L 


146  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

King  Charles  II.'s  decease,  in  1685,  having  raised  his  brother 
James  to  the  throne,  it  would  appear,  by  the  strict  limita- 
tion of  terms,  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Finch  had  resigned  their 
places  at  that  conjuncture.  In  1712  the  Hon.  Heneage 
Finch  succeeded  his  nephew  in  the  family  title,  and  be- 
came fourth  Earl  of  Winchelsea.  His  Countess  published, 
in  1713,  an  octavo  volume  entitled  '  Miscellaneous  Poems 
on  several  Occasions,  written  by  a  Lady.'  Several  of  her 
pieces  appeared  in  the  fashionable  collections  of  the  period : 
others  are  believed  to  remain  still  unpublished.  She  died 
August  5,  1720,  leaving  no  children.  The  Earl,  her 
widower,  died  in  1726.  Her  verses  on  'The  Spleen'  are 
very  poor,  and  ill  deserve  the  praise  lavished  on  them  by 
contemporary  flatterers.  Her  answer  to  half  a  dozen 
rhymed  couplets,  "  occasioned  by  four  verses  in  '  The  Eape 
of  the  Lock,' "  is  sharp-witted  and  adroit,  but  pert  and 
unpleasing.  Her  celebrated  Apologue  of  '  The  Atheist  and 
the  Acorn,'  doubtless  did  good  service  in  its  day.  It  is 
also  remarkable  for  having  suggested  to  Hannah  More 
another  Apologue  called  i  The  Two  Gardeners,'  and  pub- 
lished among  the  Cheap  Eepository  Tracts : — 

THE  ATHEIST  AND  THE  ACORTST. 

"  '  Methinks  this  world  is  oddly  made 

And  every  thing  amiss ; ' 
A  dull  complaining  Atheist  said, 
As  stretch'd  he  lay  beneath  a  shade, 

And  instanced  in  this. 

4  Behold,'  quoth  he,  '  that  mighty  thing, 

A  pumpkin  large  and  round, 
Is  held  but  by  a  little  string, 
Which  upward  cannot  make  it  spring, 
Nor  bear  it  from  the  ground. 

While  on  this  tree  a  fruit,  so  small, 

So  disproportion'd  grows, 
That  whosoe'er  surveys  this  all, 
This  universal  casual  ball, 

Its  ill  contrivance  knows. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  147 

My  better  judgment  would  have  hung 

That  fruit  upon  this  tree, 
And  left  this  nut  thus  slightly  strung, 
'Mongst  things  that  on  the  surface  sprung, 

And  weak  and  feeble  be.' 
No  more  the  caviller  could  say, 

No  further  faults  descry, 
For  upward  gazing  as  he  lay, 
An  acorn,  loosen'd  from  its  stay, 

Fell  down  upon  his  eye. 
The  wounded  part  with  tears  ran  o'er, 

As  punish 'd  for  the  sin, 
Fool !  had  that  bough  a  pumpkin  bore, 
Thy  whimsies  would  have  worked  no  more, 

Nor  skull  have  kept  them  in." 

Descriptive  poetry  can  never  be  truly  delightful,  unless 
it  is  so  perfectly  original  and  so  thoroughly  natural  as  to 
enkindle  a  beholder's  sensations  in  the  reader.  One  bor- 
rowed phrase,  one  artificial  interpolation,  one  false  image, 
will  mar  the  whole  effect  of  a  fine  verbal  picture ;  while 
the  slightest  discrepancy  between  the  poet's  expressions 
and  the  obvious  suggestions  of  the  scene,  must  inevitably 
excite  disgust. 

Any  one  accustomed  to  contemplate  rural  nature  under 
the  shades  of  night,  in  stillness  and  in  solitude,  must  be 
struck  with  surprise  and  won  to  sympathy  by  the  en- 
chanting reproduction  of  emotions  peculiar  to  that  scene 
and  hour  in  'The  Nocturnal  Keverie.'  It  is  thoroughly 
original ;  a  living  landscape  redolent  of  sweet  tranquillity, 
full  of  energy  in  gentlest  exercise.  The  key-note  of  this 
most  musical  combination  of  words,  thoughts,  and  images, 
seems  to  have  been  derived  from  Shakspeare's  '  Merchant 
of  Venice,'  act  v.,  scene  1,  where  Lorenzo  and  Jessica  in 
quiet  enjoyment  play  upon  the  phrase,  "  In  such  a  night." 
It  is  most  true, 

"  Soft  stillness  and  the  night 
Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony." 

Every  stroke  of  Lady  Winchelsea's  description  is  effective  ; 

L2 


148  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

and  the  horse,  grazing  leisurely  and  wandering  at  will  as  he 
crops  the  inviting  herbage,  is  wonderfully  true  to  nature. 

The  '  Salisbury,'  whose  strong  and  steady  lustre  is  ad- 
vantageously contrasted  with  the  pale  and  flickering 
sparkle  of  the  glow-worm,  was  probably  Lady  Anne 
Tufton,  second  daughter  of  Thomas,  sixth  Earl  of  Thanet, 
who  married,  in  1709,  James  Cecil,  fifth  Earl  of  Salisbury. 
Perhaps  these  verses  were  originally  addressed  to  her,  and 
perhaps  she  accompanied  Lady  Winchelsea  in  the  mid- 
night stroll  which  occasioned  them.  Anyhow,  this  allu- 
sion indicates  the  existence  of  a  friendship  between  the 
two  countesses,  and  rescues  the  memory  of  one  from  the 
obscurity  of  ancestral  archives. 

A  NOCTURNAL  REVERIE. 

"  In  such  a  night,  when  every  louder  wind 
Is  to  its  distant  cavern  safe  confined, 
And  only  gentle  Zephyr  fans  his  wings, 
And  lonely  Philomel  still  waking  sings  ; 
Or  from  some  tree,  famed  for  the  owl's  delight, 
She,  holloaing  clear,  directs  the  wanderer  right. 
In  such  a  night,  when  passing  clouds  give  place, 
Or  thinly  veil  the  heaven's  mysterious  face  ; 
When  in  some  river  overhung  with  green, 
The  wavering  moon  and  trembling  leaves  are  seen, 
When  freshened  grass  now  bears  itself  upright, 
And  makes  cool  banks  to  pleasing  rest  invite, 
Where  springs  the  woodbine  and  the  bramble-rose, 
And  where  the  sleepy  cowslip  sheltered  grows, 
Whilst  now  a  paler  hue  the  foxglove  takes, 
Yet  chequers  still  with  red  the  dusky  brakes, 
When  scattered  glow-worms,  but  in  twilight  fine, 
Show  trivial  beauties,  watch  their  hour  to  shine  ; 
Whilst  Salisbury  stands  the  test  of  every  light, 
In  perfect  charms  and  perfect  virtue  bright ; 
When  odours  which  declined  repelling  day, 
Through  temperate  air  uninterrupted  stray  ; 
When  darkened  groves  their  softest  shadows  wear, 
And  falling  waters  we  distinctly  hear  ; 
When  through  the  gloom  more  venerable  shows 
Some  ancient  fabric,  awful  in  repose ; 
While  sunburnt  hills  their  swarthy  looks  conceal, 
And  swelling  haycocks  thicken  up  the  vale  ; 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  I  l!> 

tho  loosed  horse  now,  as  his  pasture  h-;ids. 
Comes  slowly  grazing  through  tho  adjoining  meads, 
Whoso  stealing  pace  and  lengthened  shade  we  fi-ar, 
Till  turn-up  lorairr  iu  his  trrth  wo  hear; 
When  nibbling  sheep  at  large  pursue  their  food, 
And  unmolested  kine  re-chew  their  cud, 
When  curlews  cry  beneath  tho  village  walls, 
And  to  her  struggling  brood  the  partridge  calls  ; 
Their  short-lived  jubilee  the  creatures  keep 
Which  but  endures  while  tyrant  man  does  sleep  ; 
When  a  sedate  content  the  spirit  feels, 
And  no  fierce  light  disturbs  whilst  it  reveals  ; 
But  silent  musings  urge  the  mind  to  seek 
Something  too  high  for  syllables  to  speak  ; 
Till  the  free  soul  to  a  composedness  charmed, 
Finding  the  elements  of  rage  disarmed, 
O'er  all  below  a  solemn  quiet  grown, 
Joys  in  the  inferior  world,  and  thinks  it  like  her  own  ; 
In  such  a  night  let  me  abroad  remain, 
Till  morning  breaks,  and  all's  confused  again  ; 
Our  cares,  our  toils,  our  clamours  are  renewed, 
Or  pleasures  seldom  reached  again  pursued." 

With  equal  though  varied  skill  iu  versification,  and  in 
a  vein  of  reflection  as  true  and  deeper  still,  Lady  Win- 

chelsea  traces 

LIFE'S  PROGRESS. 
"  How  gaily  is  at  first  begun 

Our  life's  uncertain  race  ! 
Whilst  yet  that  sprightly  morning  sun, 
With  which  we  just  set  out  to  run, 
Enlightens  all  the  place. 

How  smiling  the  world's  prospect  lies, 

How  tempting  to  go  through  ! 
Not  Canaan  to  the  prophet's  eyes, 
From  Pisgah,  with  a  sweet  surprise, 

Did  more  inviting  show. 

How  soft  the  first  ideas  prove 

Which  wander  through  our  minds, 
How  full  the  joys,  how  free  the  lovo 
Which  does  that  early  season  move, 

As  flowers  the  western  winds. 

Our  sighs  are  then  but  vernal  air, 

But  April  drops  our  tears, 
Wliich  swiftly  passing,  all  grows  fair, 
Whilst  beauty  compensates  our  care, 

And  youth  each  vapour  clears. 


150  LITERAEY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

But,  oh,  too  soon,  alas  !  we  climb, 

Scarce  feeling  we  ascend 
The  gently  rising  hill  of  time, 
From  whence  with  grief  we  see  that  prime 

And  all  its  sweetness  end. 

The  die  now  cast,  our  station  known, 

Fond  expectation  past ; 
The  thorns  which  former  days  had  sown, 
To  crops  of  late  repentance  grown, 

Through  which  we  toil  at  last. 

Whilst  every  care  's  a  driving  harm, 

That  helps  to  bear  us  down, 
Which  faded  smiles  no  more  can  charm, 
But  every  tear  's  a  winter  storm, 

And  every  look  's  a  frown." 

Great  experimental  knowledge  of  human  life  and  human 
feeling  is  manifested  in  this  poem ;  and  we  are  induced 
by  it  to  regret  our  ignorance  of  that  particular  course  of 
experience,  by  which  Lady  Winchelsea  acquired  the 
wisdom  which  enhanced  the  power  of  her  native  genius. 

In  a  letter  dated  "Lichfield,  Feb.,  1763,"  these  beau- 
tiful stanzas  are  introduced  by  Miss  Seward  as  "a  little 
orphan  ode,"  which  she  had  learned  before  she  was  ten 
years  old  from  her  mother,  who  had  been  taught  to  recite 
them  in  her  own  childhood  by  a  lady  who  was  her  friend. 
Neither  Mrs.  nor  Miss  Seward  knew  the  name  of  their 
author,  nor  had  ever  seen  them  in  print ;  and  Miss  Seward 
declares  that  she  had  searched  for  them  "  in  vain  through 
the  pages  of  our  poets."  It  is  remarkable  that  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  who  edited  Miss  Seward's  'Poetical  Works,'  &c., 
should  not  have  assigned  the  "  orphan  "  to  its  true  parent. 
In  Miss  Seward's  version  of  '  Life's  Progress,'  Parnassus 
is  substituted  for  Pisgah,  and  many  other  verbal  alterations 
are  made.  That  copy,  like  Mr.  Park's,  contains  nine 
stanzas ;  the  seven,  however,  suffice  for  the  completeness 
of  the  piece,  and  the  other  two  may  well  be  rejected  as 
redundancies. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.  151 

SUSANNAH  CENTLIVRE. 

Mr.  Freeman,  a  gentleman  once  possessing  an  estate  at 
Holbeach,  in  Lincolnshire,  being  a  dissenter  and  a  zealous 
anti-royalist,  forfeited  his  property  and  fled  to  Ireland 
after  the  return  of  the  Stuarts :  he  either  took  a  wife  with 
him,  or  married  there,  and  there  his  daughter  Susannah  is 
supposed  to  have  been  born,  in  or  about  the  year  1680. 
He  died  when  she  was  only  three  years  old,  but  she  seems 
to  have  enjoyed  many  educational  advantages.  Her  turn 
for  poetry  was  early  manifested;  at  seven  years  old  she 
wrote  a  song,  and  she  always  loved  books  better  than  fine 
clothes  and  better  than  fine  company,  though  by  no  means 
indifferent  to  those  gratifications.  The  death  of  her  mother 
left  her  an  indigent  orphan,  at  the  age  of  thirteen ;  and 
two  years  afterwards  her  beauty  and  vivacity  won  the 
affections  and  the  hand  of  a  Mr.  Fox,  nephew  of  the  dis- 
tinguished statesman  Sir  Stephen,  progenitor  of  the  houses 
of  Hchester  and  Holland.  In  the  course  of  a  twelvemonth 
she  was  left  a  widow,  and  after  a  short  interval  is  said  to 
have  taken,  as  her  second  husband,  a  military  officer  named 
Carrol,  to  whom  she  was  fondly  attached.  She  had  not 
been  his  wife  more  than  eighteen  months  when  he  was 
killed  in  a  duel.  Finding  herself  poor  and  desolate,  she 
had  recourse  to  her  pen  for  the  means  of  subsistence  ;  and 
1  laving  a  passion  both  for  the  written  and  acted  drama 
she  also  went  upon  the  stage.  While  performing  before 
the  Court  at  Windsor,  dressed  in  man's  clothes,  in  the 
part  of  Alexander  the  Great,  in  Lee's  tragedy  of  that 
name,  she  attracted  the  admiring  attention  of  Joseph  Cent- 
livre,  Yeoman  of  the  Mouth  to  Queen  Anne  and  George  I., 
and  married  him  in  1706.  Good-natured,  agreeable,  and 
merry,  she  led  a  happy  life  with  the  well-contented 


152  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

yeoman,  and  died  at  his  house  in  Spring  Gardens,  Decem- 
ber 1st,  1723.  She  produced  nineteen  successful  plays, 
all  more  or  less  remarkable  for  ability,  and  the  comedies 
especially  for  cleverness  and  wit,  though  strongly  tinctured 
with  the  indelicacy  of  her  time.  '  The  Busy  Body,'  i  The 
Bold  Stroke  for  a  Husband,'  and  '  The  Wonder,'  are  still 
accounted  standards  on  the  stage.  Her  works  were  posthu- 
mously published  in  three  volumes.  Noble,  in  his  con- 
tinuation of  Granger,  mentions  a  mezzotinto  engraving  of 
her  by  Pelham,  from  a  portrait  by  Firmin. 

MRS.  MANLEY. 

This  clever  woman  was  born  in  the  .island  of  Guernsey, 
of  which  her  father,  Sir  Roger  Manley,  was  the  governor. 
Her  mother  died  while  she  was  an  infant.  Her  father, 
whom  she  alleged  to  be  the  author  of  the  first  volume  of 
'The  Turkish  Spy,'*  remarked  her  early  indications  of 
mental  ability,  and  provided  her  with  a  good  education. 
Dying  while  she  was  scarcely  more  than  a  child,  Sir  Eoger 
left  his  daughter  to  the  guardianship  of  a  near  kinsman, 
who,  betraying  the  sacred  trust  thus  reposed  in  him,  won  the 
young  girl's  affections,  married  her,  and  brought  her  to 
London.  Here,  far  away  from  her  old  friends  and  the  home 
of  her  childhood,  the  dreadful  discovery  was  made  that  her 
husband  had  been  previously  married  to  a  wife  who  was  still 
living ;  and  here  her  betrayer  abandoned  her  to  disgrace  and 
poverty.  After  about  three  years,  Mrs.  Manley  was  intro- 
duced to  the  notorious  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  who  took 

*  For  a  curious  disquisition  on  '  The  Turkish  Spy '  and  its  authorship, 
the  reader  is  referred  to  Hallara's  'Literature  of  Europe,'  ed.  iv.,  vol.  iii., 
pp.  569-73,  both  text  and  notes,  where  the  first  volume  is  without  hesi- 
tation assigned  to  John  Paul  Marana,  a  native  of  Genoa.  The  subject  is 
likewise  discussed  in  Boswell's  '  Life  of  Johnson '  and  in  Mrs.  Cockburn's 
works. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  153 

IUT  under  her  especial  patronage,  received  her  into  her 
IK  .use,  and  treated  her  with  great  hospitality  for  a  period 
of  six  months.  At  the  end  of  that  time  the  Duchess,  in  a 
fit  of  caprice,  turned  Mrs.  Manley  out  of  doors,  who,  being 
cast  entirely  upon  her  own  exertions  for  support,  and 
longing  probably  to  regain  a  place  in  the  gay  society  for 
which  she  had  acquired  a  relish,  wrote  soon  afterwards  her 
first  tragedy,  '  The  Koyal  Mischief,'  which  was  successfully 
performed  at  the  Theatre  Koyal  in  the  year  1696,  the 
earliest  date  which  we  find  attached  to  any  incident  of 
Mrs.  Manley's  erratic  career.  The  fashionable  favour  won 
by  this  production  she  too  eagerly  strove  to  increase  by 
her  play  called  'The  Lost  Lover,  or  Jealous  Husband,' 
which  was  produced  in  the  same  year  and  failed.  In 
1707  her  tragedy  of  'Almyna,  or  the  Arabian  Vow'  was 
brought  out. 

While  thus  occupied  with  dramatic  compositions  her 
social  connections  involved  her  in  the  political  partizan- 
ship  of  that  licentious  age,  and  she  wrote  the  four  volumes 
of  '  Memoirs  of  the  New  Atlantis,'  a  defamatory  and  scan- 
dalous work,  chiefly,  though  not  exclusively,  directed 
against  the  Whig  party  then  in  power.  A  warrant  from 
the  Secretary  of  State's  office  having  consequently  been 
sent  to  seize  the  printer  and  publisher,  Mrs.  Manley 
avowed  the  authorship,  was  examined  before  Lord  Sun- 
derland,  and  replied  to  his  interrogations  with  flippant 
falsehoods,  carefully  screening  from  censure  not  only  the 
apprehended  tradesmen,  but  all  the  persons  who  had  sup- 
plied her  with  information. 

Her  '  Court  Intrigues'  and  *  Memoirs  of  Europe  towards 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,'  belonged  to  her 
defamatory  and  political  series. 


154  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND. 

A  change  of  ministry  taking  place  in  the  year  1710, 
she  became  a  defender  of  the  government. 

'The  Examiner,'  a  weekly  paper,  having  been  com- 
menced by  Henry  St.  John  (Lord  Bolingbroke),  Matthew 
Prior,  and  their  confederates,  had  issued  only  thirteen 
numbers,  when,  on  the  10th  of  November,  1710,  Swift 
became  its  editor.  He  carried  it  on  with  great  success, 
writing  every  article  himself,  until  June  14,  1711,  when, 
under  his  continued  direction,  Mrs.  Manley  undertook  to 
write  for  it,  and  she  carried  it  on  with  much  spirit  and 
little  conscience  during  the  remainder  of  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne,  who  died  August  1,  1714. 

In  Nichols's  '  Collection  of  Poems,'  vol.  vii.,  p.  369,  are 
some  verses  by  Mrs.  Manley,  addressed  to  the  Countess  of 
Bristol,  Elizabeth,  daughter  and  heir  of  Sir  Thomas  Felton, 
second  wife  of  John  first  Earl  of  Bristol  and  mother  of 
John  Lord  Harvey.  Lady  Bristol  was  then  in  the  prime 
of  life,  and  her  children  in  their  infancy.  The  verses  run 
upon  a  level  line  of  mediocrity,  and  as  they  declare — 

"  Thee,  lovely  Bristol,  thee,  with  pride  I  choose, 
The  first  and  only  subject  of  my  muse  ;" 

it  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  other  heroic  or  pseudo-heroic 
couplets  can  be  laid  to  Mrs.  Manley's  charge. 

In  the  year  1717  her  tragedy  of  'Lucius'  was  brought 
out  and  well  received  by  the  public. 

It  was  probably  in  connection  with '  The  Examiner '  that 
Mrs.  Maniey  made  the  acquaintance  of  Alderman  Barber, 
a  printer  and  a  high  Tory,  who  invited  her  to  his  house  on 
Lambeth  Hill,  where  she  resided  until  her  death,  which 
took  place  on  the  llth  of  July,  1724.  She  was  buried  in 
the  church  of  St.  Bennet,  Paul's  Wharf. 

She  published  an  autobiographical  account  of  her  own 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  155 

life  under  the  title  of  *  Memoirs  of  Kivella,'  which  the 
writer  of  these  pages  has  not  seen.  None  of  her  produc- 
tions "have  lived,  or  deserved  to  live,  although  her  popu- 
larity was  great  in  her  day,  and  her  talents  undoubtedly 
were  versatile  and  engaging. 

As  an  extraordinary  instance  of  the  love  of  the  public 
for  gossip  and  slander,  it  may  be  mentioned  here  that  a 
seventh  edition  of  her  'New  Atlantis'  was  published  in 
the  year  1736. 

The  memory  of  the  fabled  or  mythic  Atlantis  of  the 
ancients,  and  the  zeal  for  maritime  discovery,  which  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  stimulated  by  the.  success  of  Columbus, 
had  directed  daring  English  navigators  to  seek  the  north- 
west passage  near  the  Arctic  Pole,  and  a  new  Atlantis  at 
the  Antarctic,  furnished  Lord  Bacon  with  a  basis  on  which 
to  rear  the  imaginary  fabric  of  '  Solomon's  College,  or  the 
College  of  the  Six  Days'  Works,'  and  that  same  uncer- 
tain site,  the  New  Atlantis,  was  subsequently  chosen  by 
Mrs.  Manley  as  the  scene  of  her  disgraceful  tales. 

Thus  does  the  same  conjectural  fact,  or  figment,  afford 
"  either  a  field  for  the  cultivation  of  the  choicest  fruits,  or  a 
waste  place  for  the  reception  of  the  vilest  refuse. 


156  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  POETESSES. 
A.D.  1725-1750. 

Jane  Brereton  —  Elizabeth  Kowe  —  Catherine  Cockburn. 


"  L'e'nigme  de  la  destinee  humaine  n'est  de  rien  pour  la  plupart  des 
hommes  ;  le  poete  1'a  toujours  presente  a  rimagination." — '  L'Allemagne,' 
vol.  i.,  seconde  partie,  chap.  x. 

The  enigma  of  human  destiny  is  as  nothing  to  most  people ;  but  to  the 
imagination  of  the  poet  it  is  ever  present. 


MRS.  BRERETON. 

JANE,  daughter  of  Thomas  Hughes,  of  Bryn  Gryffid,  near 
Mold,  in  Flintshire,  and  of  Anne  Jones  his  wife,  was  born 
in  the  year  1685.  Her  father  was  an  intelligent,  well- 
informed  man,  and  took  care  to  cultivate  his  child's  pro- 
mising abilities.  In  1711,  she  married  Mr.  Thomas  Brere- 
ton, the  only  son  of  Major  Brereton,  of  a  good  Cheshire 
family,  who  was  at  that  time  a  commoner  of  Brazennose 
College,  Oxford.  Having  been  imprudent,  and  outrun  his 
pecuniary  means,  Mr.  Brereton  for  some  time  sought 
refuge  in  France  from  his  creditors.  Returning,  he  ob- 
tained employment  in  the  Custom-House  department ;  and 
being  stationed  at  Park  Gate,  near  Chester,  was  accident- 
ally drowned  in  February,  1722,  at  Saltney,  by  attempting 
to  cross  when  the  tide  was  coming  in.  His  remains  were 
interred  in  Shotwick  Chapel,  which  belonged  to  his  kins- 
man, Thomas  Brereton,  Esq.,  M.P.  for  Liverpool. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         If)  7 

After  her  widowhood  Mrs.  Brereton  took  up  her  abode 
at  Wrexham,  where  she  died,  Aug.  7,  1740,  leaving  two 
surviving  daughters,  Lucy  and  Charlotte.  She  had  been 
a  contributor  of  verses  to  'The  Gentleman's  Magazine,' 
using  the  signature  of  "  Melissa"  A  volume,  containing 
her  poems,  letters,  and  an  account  of  her  life,  was  pub- 
lished in  1744 :  Edward  Cave,  London.  The  candid  and 
chivalrous  Sir  Egerton  Brydges  has  enshrined  her  name 
in  the  third  volume  of '  The  Censura  Literaria.' 

ELIZABETH  ROWE. 

Elizabeth  was  the  eldest  of  three  daughters,  the  only 
children  of  respectable  and  opulent  parents,  Mr.  Walter 
Singer,  a  dissenting  minister,  who  had  suffered  imprison- 
ment for  nonconformity,  and  his  wife  Elizabeth  Portnell. 
They  were  persons  of  deep  and  consistent  piety,  who 
brought  up  their  children  in  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  and 
set  them  a  daily  example  of  practical  truth,  justice,  and 
kindness. 

Elizabeth  Singer  was  born  at  Ilchester,  in  Somerset- 
shire, Sept.  11,  1674,  the  same  year  in  which  Dr.  Isaac 
Watts  first  saw  the  light.  She  had  a  constitutional  com- 
placency of  disposition,  strong  affections,  and  joyous 
spirits ;  and  from  her  early  infancy  she  received  the  home 
lessons  of  piety  and  goodness  as  congenial  and  delightful 
beyond  all  other  things.  When  a  child  she  manifested 
-great  fondness  for  music,  painting,  and  poetry ;  being  en- 
chanted with  melodious  sounds ;  accustomed  to  squeeze  out 
the  various  coloured  juices  of  plants  to  tincture  her  little 
pictures  before  she  received  lessons  from  a  drawing- 
master;  and  to  make  verses  at  twelve  years'  old.  Her 
general  education  in  mental  exercises,  manual  occupations, 
and  personal  accomplishments,  was  only  such  as  an  ordi- 


158  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

nary  middle-class  boarding-school  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury could  supply. 

On  her  mother's  death,  her  father  removed  his  family 
into  the  neighbourhood  of  Frome,  where  his  landed  pro- 
perty principally  lay.    His  freedom  from  sectarian  bigotry, 
his  good  sense,  and  great  benevolence,  obtained  for  him 
general  respect ;  and  the  first  Lord  Weymouth,  a  shrewd 
discerner  of  character,  used  often  to  visit  and  converse 
with  Mr.  Singer,  as  did  also  Bishop  Kenn  when  staying  at 
Longleat.     When  Elizabeth  Singer  was  about  nineteen 
years  of  age,  a  copy  of  her  verses  chanced  to  find  their 
way  to  that  mansion,  and  they  excited  in  the   Thynne 
family   a  wish  to  become    acquainted   with   the  young 
poetess.     The  home  circle  at  Longleat  then  consisted  of 
Lord   and  Lady  Weymouth,   their   only  son,   the  Hon. 
Henry  Thynne,  his  wife  Grace,  the  only  daughter  and  heir 
of  Sir  George  Strode,  with  the  two  children  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Thynne,  Frances  and  Mary.     Acquaintance  soon  led 
to  friendship,  and  friendship  to  intimacy,  and  Elizabeth 
Singer  spent  much  of  her  time  at  Longleat,  at  a  period  of 
her  life  when  an  introduction  to  persons  of  elevated  rank, 
elegant  habits,  and  high  intellectual  culture,  was  gratify- 
ing alike  to  her  imagination  and  her  feelings,    Mr.  Thynne 
himself  became  her  instructor  in  the  French  and  Italian 
languages,  and  the  tender  friendship  of  Mrs.  Thynne  con- 
curred with  the  native  refinement  of  her  taste,  in  leading 
her  readily  to  acquire  all  the  fascinating  graces  of  manner 
and  demeanour  which  adorn  the  upper  classes  of  society, 
and   constitute  the   well-bred  gentlewoman.     Here  also 
began  the  fond  and  life-long  attachment  between  Elizabeth 
Singer  and  Frances  Thynne,  afterwards  Countess  of  Hert- 
ford and  Duchess  of  Somerset ;  an  attachment  enhanced  by 
mutual  respect,  endeared  by  the  recollection  of  participated 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         1  T.f) 

joys  and  sorrows,  and  hallowed  by  religion.  Anne,  the 
poetical  Countess  of  Winchelsea,  was  sister-in-law  to  Lady 
Weymouth,  and  Elizabeth  Singer  had  the  privilege  of 
making  her  acquaintance,  and  that  of  many  other  eminent 
and  excellent  persons  at  Longleat. 

Her  person  was  very  fine,  her  complexion  brilliant,  her 
countenance  most  benign  and  lovely,  her  manners  soft  and 
lively,  her  voice  flute-like,  her  conversation  eloquent  and 
full  of  soul.  She  had,  besides  all  these  advantages,  that 
ineffable  charm  which  Lord  Clarendon  attributes  to  Lord 
Falkland,  in  being  "so  exactly  easy  and  affable  to  all 
men,  that  his  face  and  countenance  was  always  present 
and  vacant  to  his  company,"  so  as  to  hold  "  any  cloudiness 
and  less  pleasantness  of  the  visage  a  kind  of  rudeness  and 
incivility."  Her  admirers  were  numerous,  and  among  those 
whose  addresses  she  declined  to  accept  was  Matthew  Prior, 
the  poet,  in  whose  verses  she  has  found  one  of  her  many 
monuments. 

In  the  year  1696,  she  was  induced  to  publish  a  collec- 
tion of  her  juvenile  poems  under  the  name  of  "  Philomela;" 
a  designation  which,  seeming  to  arrogate  a  place  of  supre- 
macy among  poetesses  such  as  belongs  to  the  nightingale 
among  birds,  might  justly  render  her  liable  to  the  charge 
of  egregious  vanity.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  her 
noble  friends  chose  the  name  as  a  sort  of  play  upon  her 
patronymic,  and  as  a  compliment  to  her  rhyming  skill,  and 
that  her  fault  consisted  only  in  the  want  of  resolution  to 
resist  their  decision.  The  appellation  she  retained  through 
life,  without  personal  scruple  or  public  cavil ;  but  in  after 
days  she  never  ceased  to  regret  having  written  those 
poems  and  allowed  them  to  be  printed ;  considering  them 
as  idle  and  worthless  effusions,  incapable  of  doing  good  to 
anybody.  Her  judgment  in  this  instance  was  probably 


160  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

correct.     A  contemporary  poet  thus  gently  satirizes  these 
early  effusions  of  Mrs.  Kowe ; — 

"  Singer,  by  name  and  nature,  made 
For  music  and  the  rhyming  trade, 
For  her  weak  genius  soared  too  high, 
And  lost  her  muse  above  the  sky  ; 
A  flaming  sun,  a  radiant  light, 
In  every  verse  distract  our  sight, 
Diffuse  their  dazzling  beams  from  far, 
And  not  one  line  without  a  star ; 
Through  streams  of  light  we  seem  to  rove 
And  tread  on  shining  orbs  above."* 

Her  religion  was  not  the  result  of  disappointment,  sick- 
ness, or  incapacity  for  this  world's  enjoyments  ;  nor  did  it 
owe  its  origin  to  the  fear  of  punishment  to  come.  It  was 
a  free  choice  of  permanent  spiritual  happiness,  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  transient  joys  of  time  and  sense.  Her  health 
was  firm,  her  temperament  sanguine ;  she  was  from  educa- 
tion habitually  serene,  and  in  natural  disposition  cheerful 
and  sprightly.  Her  social  feelings  were  kindly,  and  her 
affections  warm.  In  friendship,  in  love,  and  in  devotion 
to  God,  she  was  an  enthusiast.  Like  all  true  enthusiasts 
she  was  simple-minded  and  sincere,  earnest  and  disinter- 
ested. Her  daily  vivacity  and  good-humour  were  as  re- 
markable as  the  purity  of  her  conduct,  and  the  fervour  of 
her  devout  aspirations.  Indolence  and  inactivity,  softness 
and  credulity,  are  faults  to  which  she  lays  claim  with  pro- 
bable justness,  for  they  are  the  very  weeds  most  likely  to 
spring  up  in  a  soil  so  free  from  all  acrid  and  pungent 
admixtures. 

The  first  volume  of  her  «  Miscellaneous  Works '  contains, 
besides  later  compositions,  several  specimens  of  her  poetry 
written  between  the  twenty-second  and  the  thirty-sixth 
year  of  her  age,  which  prove  her  to  have  entered  with  zeal 

*  '  Bibliotheca,  occasioned  by  the  sight  of  a  modern  Library,'  first  pub- 
lished in  1712,  and  conjecturally  assigned  by  Nichols  to  Dr.  King. 


LITERA11Y   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  l(jl 

into  the  spirit  of  all  those  pleasurable  occasions  which  call 
forth  verses  of  society,  tending  to  promote  the  entertain- 
ment and  to  enliven  the  abundant  leisure  of  a  circle  of 
guests  assembled  in  a  country  mansion. 

Having  been  taught  by  her  father  to  abstain  from  all 
games  of  amusement,  she  never  could  be  prevailed  upon 
by  any  one  to  learn  how  to  play  at  them.  It  is  said  that 
she  never  but  once  was  known  to  take  a  hand  at  cards, 
and  that  she  did  so  then  on  purpose  to  lose  a  sum  of  money 
to  a  person  whom  she  knew  to  be  in  want  of  it. 

In  the  year  1708,  she  participated  in  the  grief  of  the 
Longleat  family  on  the  death  of  the  Hon.  Henry  Thynne, 
and  wrote  a  poem  to  his  memory. 

She  was  too  happy  in  her  domestic  and  social  relations 
to  marry  without  a  decided  preference,  and  consequently 
remained  a  maiden  until  middle  life.  In  the  year  1709, 
being  on  a  visit  at  Bath,  Mr.  Thomas  Kowe  was  intro- 
duced to  her,  and  a  mutual  attachment  ensued.  He  was 
the  son  of  Dr.  Watts's  friend,  the  Rev.  Benoni  Eowe,  and 
a  member  of  the  same  dissenting  body  as  her  father  and 
herself.  Mr.  Thomas  Kowe  had  been  very  carefully  edu- 
cated at  the  Charter  House  and  at  the  University  of 
Leyden,  probably  with  the  intention  of  fitting  him  to  be- 
come the  head  of  an  academy  or  collegiate  institution.  .  He 
was  a  man  of  genius  and  of  great  scholastic  acquirements, 
whose  chief  satisfaction  consisted  in  classical  studies  and 
in  conversation,  for  which  he  had  peculiar  talents.  He 
was  of  an  eager  and  ardent  temper,  and  of  blameless  purity 
of  life.  They  were  married  in  1710,  he  being  then  twenty- 
three  years  of  age,  and  his  bride  thirty-six.  The  union 
was  a  very  happy  one,  and  had  no  other  drawback  than 
Mr.  Howe's  delicate  health.  They  spent  their  winters  in 
London  to  gratify  his  fondness  for  society,  and  the  other 


162  LITERAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

seasons  of  each  year  in  some  country  seclusion.     In  1712, 
Mrs.  Kowe   had  the   small-pox,  which   happily  left  her 
beauty  and  her  constitutional  health  alike  uninjured,  while  - 
it  elicited  poetical  condolences  and  congratulations  from 
her  friends. 

On  the  28th  of  July,  1714,  she  had  the  affliction  of 
losing  her  kind  friend,  Thomas  Thynne,  first  Viscount 
Weymouth ;  at  whose  decease,  without  male  issue,  Long- 
leat,  with  the  title,  passed  to  another  branch  of  his  family, 
and  his  grand-daughters,  Frances  Countess  of  Hertford, 
and  Mary  Lady  Brooke,  became  his  personal  heirs. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  same  year,  the  rapid  decline  of 
Mr.  Kowe's  health  gave  signs  of  preparation  to  his  wife  of 
a  far  deeper  sorrow.  She  nursed  her  husband  with  fond, 
untiring  assiduity  day  and  night,  removing  with  him  from 
place  to  place  to  obtain  every  advantage  of  medical  advice 
and  change  of  air,  until,  on  the  13th  of  May,  1715,  while 
sojourning  at  Hampstead  among  his  near  relations,  he  died 
of  consumption  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight.  Her  grief  was 
extreme,  and  the  bereaved  and  childless  woman  deter- 
mined henceforth  to  realize  her  idea  of  the  habits  of  the 
"  widows  who  are  widows  indeed,"  to  withdraw  from  society, 
which  his  death  had  rendered  distasteful,  to  consecrate 
herself  to  his  memory,  and  to  devote  the  whole  of  her 
remaining  life  to  pious  meditations  and  to  works  of  charity. 
She  withdrew  to  her  paternal  home,  and  in  the  placid 
calm  of  her  saintly  father's  companionship  soon  recovered 
her  natural  cheerfulness ;  adhering  stedfastly  and  strictly 
to  her  resolve,  which,  doubtful  of  her  own  compliant 
nature,  she  appears  to  have  strengthened  by  a  vow.  The 
biographers  do  not  relate  what  became  of  her  two  sisters, 
but  it  is  certain,  from  an  expression  in  one  of  her  familiar 
letters,  that  she  had  neither  nephew  or  niece. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

On  the  18th  of  April,  1719,  Mr.  Singer  died,  full  of 
peaceful  hope,  and  bequeathed  to  Mrs.  Kowe  his  whole 
estate,  who  solemnly  determined  regularly  to  devote  half 
her  income  to  charitable  uses.  This  vow  she  more  than 
fulfilled,  abridging  her  personal  comforts  in  order  to  save 
money  to  give  away.  She  once  said  to  an  intimate  Mend, 
"  Half  the  pleasure  of  my  life  would  be  lost  if  there  were 
no  poor."  Her  kindness  was  not  confined  to  those  in  ab- 
ject need ;  she  sought  out  cases  of  concealed  or  unobtrusive 
privation,  and  with  all  the  delicacy  of  a  generous  heart 
evaded  gratitude  when  she  relieved  distress.  She  used  to 
say  that  "  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  benefits  that  could  be 
done  to  mankind,  to  free  them  from  the  cares  and  anxieties 
of  a  narrow  fortune." 

To  comfort  mourners  she  deemed  her  especial  mission  ; 
and  on  the  death,  in  1720,  of  her  friend  Mary  Lady 
Brooke,  she  left  her  quiet  place  of  retreat,  at  the  entreaty 
of  Mrs.  Thynne,  the  sorrowing  mother,  and  stayed  several 
months  with  her  in  London.  She  fed  and  clothed  the 
poor,  paid  for  the  instruction  of  untaught  children,  sup- 
plied all  the  readers  in  her  neighbourhood  with  Bibles  and 
good  books,  irrespective  of  sectarian  prejudices,  and  moved 
like  an  angel  of  beneficence  in  her  little  sphere,  spreading 
serenity  and  joy  around  her.  She  took  singular  delight 
not  only  in  relieving  every  form  and  degree  of  distress, 
but  in  imparting  pleasure  both  by  the  sweetest  and  most 
endearing  kindness  of  manner,  and  by  gifts  of  her  own 
drawings,  pious  books,  and  anything  else  which  she  had 
reason  to  believe  was  desired  or  would  be  particularly 
acceptable.  She  was  very  tender  of  hurting  anybody's  feel- 
ings, and  perfectly  understood  the  practice  of  that  beautiful 
precept,  "  Honour  all  men ;"  while,  with  benignant  gentle- 
ness, she  refrained  from  taking  offence  at  any  instances  she 

M2 


164  LITEBAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

chanced  to  meet  with  of  insolence  and  ingratitude.  To 
render  people  happy  was  the  delight  of  her  heart  and 
the  labour  of  her  life,  and  her  home  was  a  very  temple  of 
peace.  Perhaps  her  indulgence  to  her  servants  was  ex- 
cessive, but  they  never  quitted  her  unless  to  marry.  She 
abjured  every  species  of  evil-speaking,  and  deemed  un- 
kindness,  ill-will,  and  malignity,  to  be  more  heinous 
offences  than  the  sins  consequent  upon  mere  bodily 
temptations. 

Moral  excellence  of  the  highest  kind,  including  the 
strict  subjection  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  to  the  rule  of 
righteousness,  is  never  attained  at  a  single  effort  even  by 
the  noblest  natures ;  it  is  always  the  result  of  frequent 
minor  failures,  and  of  incessantly-renewed  self -conquests. 
The  private  papers  of  Mrs.  Kowe  show  the  simple  and 
earnest  sincerity  with  which  she  achieved  these  "toils 
divine."  The  perusal  of  her  familiar  letters,  and  of  her 
elaborate  prose  compositions  and  poems,  leaves  an  im- 
pression on  the  mind  that  she  must  have  lived  in  the  daily 
dread  of  death,  and  that  her  religion  was  of  a  sentimental 
and  morbid  cast.  The  perusal  of  her  biography,  written 
by  Henry  Grove,  her  personal  friend,  and  by  Theophilus 
Kowe,  her  brother-in-law,  counteracts  that  impression  most 
effectually ;  and  the  combined  result  of  both  is  the  con- 
viction that  there  never  lived  a  more  humble-minded  or 
a  better  woman. 

Her  dearest  friend  was  Frances,  wife  of  Algernon  Earl  of 
Hertford  and  Lord  Percy,  afterwards  seventh  Duke  of 
Somerset,  and  then  concentrating  in  his  person  all  the 
hereditary  honours  of  the  Percys  and  the  Seymours,  and 
more  peerages  than  were  ever  before  or  since  possessed  by 
one  British  subject. 

At  the  request  of  the  Countess,  Mrs.  Kowe  went  at 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND,  165 

various  times  to  share  the  summer  pleasures  of  her  country 
houses,  or  to  solace  her  by  companionship  under  afflictive 
circumstances.  They  maintained  a  constant  correspond- 
ence, and  an  interchange  of  verses,  drawings,  books,  and 
fancy  work.  Once,  when  Mrs.  Rowe  felt  an  unconquerable 
averseness  to  change  of  scene,  the  Countess  volunteered  to 
become  her  guest ;  and  the  visit  was  gladly  accepted  with 
only  one  stipulation,  that  her  ladyship  should  write  out  her 
own  bill  of  fare  every  morning.  The  friends  enjoyed 
themselves  so  thoroughly  on  this  occasion  that  the  Countess 
subsequently  came  again  and  again  to  sojourn  in  Mrs. 
Rowe's  humble  dwelling. 

Lady  Hertford's  pen  has  eulogized  the  character  of  her 
revered  Mrs.  Rowe  in  some  elegiac  stanzas,  in  which  she 
describes  her  as — 

"  From  the  world  retired, 
Though  by  that  world  distinguished  and  admired." 

In  the  copy  of  Thomson's  *  Hymn  to  Solitude,'  printed 
among  Mrs.  Rowe's  letters,  instead  of  *  Musidora,'  '  Philo- 
mela '  is  represented  as  the  companion  of  "  the  gentle- 
looking  Hertford : " — 

"As  with  her,  Philomela,  she, 
(Her  Philomela  fond  of  thee), 
Amid  the  long-withdrawing  vale 
Awakes  the  rival  nightingale." 

In  one  of  her  letters  she  recommends  Thomson's 
*  Winter/  then  recently  published,  to  her  friend's  atten- 
tion ;  and  after  having  made  that  poet's  personal  acquaint- 
ance, she  addressed  to  him  some  congratulatory  lines,  in 
verse,  upon  his  having  won  Lady  Hertford's  approval. 
Without  any  pretensions  to  erudition,  Mrs.  Rowe  was  a 
well-read  woman,  with  a  spontaneous  fertility  of  mind  and 
ready  powers  of  expression. 

In  the  year  1728,   she  published  her  « Friendship   in 


166         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Death,  in  Twenty  Letters,  from  the  Dead  to  the  Living.' 
Her  avowed  object  in  this  work  was  "  to  make  the  mind 
contract,  as  it  were,  unawares,  an  habitual  persuasion  of 
our  future  existence,  by  writings  built  on  that  foundation, 
and  addressed  to  the  affections  and  imagination."  In 
1729,  she  published  the  first  part  of  her  '  Letters,  Moral 
and  Entertaining  ;'  in  1731,  the  second  part ;  and  in  1733, 
the  third  part.  Both  these  works  acquired  great  and 
immediate  celebrity ;  they  were  translated  into  French, 
and  republished  at  Amsterdam  in  1740.  Being  written 
with  animated  ease  and  elegance,  an  exuberance  of  fanci- 
ful circumstances  and  fantastic  decorations  give  attraction 
to  these  series  of  short  amatory  tales ;  but  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  their  anti-Sadducean  tendencies,  and  their 
"  examples  of  heroic  virtue,  and  the  most  generous  benevo- 
lence," made  little  impression  upon  such  of  their  readers 
as  were  not  already  practical  Christians. 

Having  been  acquainted  with  them  as  works  of  amuse- 
ment in  early  youth,  and  re-perusing  them  now  in  the 
autumn  of  life,  the  feeling  of  the  girl  and  the  judgment  of 
the  critic  coincide  so  entirely  as  to  induce  self-confidence 
in  the  declaration,  that  the  disproportionate  value  assigned 
in  them  to  the  passion  of  love,  and  the  sentimentalism  of 
their  general  tone,  are  likely  to  provoke  the  contempt  of 
the  strong  and  to  assist  the  enervation  of  the  weak.  They 
were  fitted  only  for  their  day,  and  for  a  few  in  that  day. 
In  the  year  1736,  Mrs.  Kowe  published  her  poem,  called 
*  The  History  of  Joseph/  to  which,  at  the  urgent  request 
of  her  friend  Lady  Hertford,  she  afterwards  wrote  a  sequel, 
in  two  books,  which  was  published  early  in  1737.  In  this 
poem  there  is  a  larger  accumulation  of  historical  knowledge 
than  in  all  her  other  compositions  put  together.  Having 
a  natural  faculty  for  narration,  she  has  not  only  told  the 


LITERAHY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  167 

story  fluently,  in  easy  couplets  of  heroic  verse,  but  also 
introduced  so  many  apt  illustrations  and  entertaining 
episodes  as  to  make  the  eight  first  books  pleasant  reading. 
The  ninth  and  tenth  are  of  inferior  merit,  presenting 
merely  a  rhymed  repetition  of  Scripture  facts,  and,  conse- 
quently, a  depreciating  recital. 

She  had  great  fairness  and  candour,  and  judged  im- 
partially her  own  productions.  "I  have  wrote  no  pious 
meditations  of  late.  The  warmth  of  devotion,  perhaps,  as 
well  as  other  passions,  declines  with  life ;  but  I  hope  the 
calm,  the  reasonable,  and  solid  parts  of  religion  will  be  still 
improved"  * 

A  collection  of  these  meditations  she  bequeathed  to  Dr. 
Watts  for  posthumous  publication,  with  the  hope  that  they 
might  prove  the  means  of  fostering  religion  in  other  hearts 
as  they  had  done  in  her  own.  Dr.  Watts  gave  them  the 
title  of '  Devout  Exercises,'  and  in  his  preface  apologised  for 
some  expressions  which  might  seem  "a  little  too  rap- 
turous." 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1736,  she  suffered  from  an 
attack  of  serious  illness,  and  her  biographer,  Mr.  Theo- 
philus  Rowe,  admits  that  "  this  disorder  (as  she  expressed 
herself  to  one  of  her  most  intimate  friends)  found  her 
mind  not  quite  so  serene  and  prepared  to  meet  death  as 
usual."  In  fact,  she  then  learned  the  diiference  between 
imaginative  anticipations  formed  at  ease  and  in  health,  and 
the  real  failing  of  flesh  and  heart  under  the  horrors  of  the 
mortal  curse.  Her  piety  was  genuine,  and  well  it  stood 
the  trial.  Prayer  to  the  Heavenly  Father  whom  she  had 
served  all  her  life  long,  and  the  consideration  of  the  Divine 
Saviour's  atonement  and  constant  mediation  for  sinners, 
enabled  her  to  prove  the  consolations  of  "  the  Holy  Ghost, 

*  80th  Letter  to  the  Countess  of  Hertlonl. 


168  LITEKAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  Comforter,"  and  so  to  triumph  over  sufferings  in  the 
prospect  of  death,  that  she  repeated  Pope's  '  Dying 
Christian  to  his  Soul '  with  intense  delight.  From  this 
illness  she  entirely  recovered,  regained  her  usual  health, 
strength,  and  gaiety  of  heart,  and  occupied  herself,  as  she 
ever  delighted  to  do,  in  active  works  of  piety  and  charity, 
and  friendly  benevolence.  She  was  afraid  of  illness  lest  its 
pain  and  languor  should  render  her  impatient  and  melan- 
choly, and  betray  her  into  conduct  that  might  in  any  way 
dishonour  her  religious  profession.  She  prayed  frequently 
to  God  that  He  would  spare  her  this  temptation,  and  her 
prayers  were  heard. 

On  Saturday  the  19th  of  February,  1737,  she  was  in 
perfect  health  and  spirits.  At  eight  o'clock  that  evening, 
after  conversing  with  liveliness  and  laughter,  she  withdrew 
to  her  chamber  for  the  exercise  of  those  meditations  and 
prayers  to  which  she  especially  devoted  herself  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  Sabbath.  At  ten  her  maid  found  Mrs.  Eowe 
lying  upon  the  floor  speechless  and  dying.  A  physician 
and  a  surgeon  speedily  attended,  and  did  what  they  could 
to  restore  her.  She  expired  a  few  minutes  before  2  A.M. 
on  Sunday,  February  20,  1737 ;  passing  insensibly  from  a 
world  in  which  she  had  been  a  blessing,  to  those  regions 
of  immortal  felicity,  where  her  seraphic  spirit  had  long 
desired  to  be. 

In  compliance  with  her  directions,  her  remains  were 
interred  under  the  same  gravestone  with  her  father's,  in 
the  meeting-house  at  Frome.  The  tears  and  lamentations 
of  her  friends  and  neighbours,  high  and  low,  rich  and 
poor,  young  and  old,  bewailed  her  loss,  and  hallowed  her 
memory. 

Her  style,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  was  formed  on  that 
of  Addison,  preserving  much  of  the  elegance  of  her  model, 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  169 

with  still  greater  ease,  copiousness  and  luxuriance.  She 
\\rotr  with  facility,  and  delighted  in  the  act;  but  she  was 
no  fastidious  critic,  and  loathed  the  toil  of  revision.  Her 
translations  from  the  Italian  of  Tasso,  Guarini,  and  Rolli, 
and  from  the  French  of  Kacine,  are  respectable.  She  is 
never  at  a  loss  for  words,  and  although  her  mind  calls  for 
no  exact  definitions  or  fine  gradations  of  meaning,  she 
strikes  off  the  general  sense  of  things  successfully. 

Her  paraphrases  of  the  Scripture,  and  her  versification 
of  the  Psalms,  are  not  inferior  to  those  of  other  devout 
writers  of  her  time.  Her  Devout  Soliloquies  have  some 
little  poetical  merit.  Her  hymns  want  conciseness.  The 
3-ith  soliloquy  is  one  of  her  best  poetical  pieces  in  blank 
verse : — 

"  Look  down  with  pity,  gracious  Lord,  look  down 
From  thy  unbounded  height  of  happiness, 
On  me  a  wretched  but  a  suppliant  sinner. 
Thy  times  are  always  ;  mine  will  soon  be  past, 
And  measured  out ;  while  thine  are  still  unchanged  : 
In  boundless  life  and  undiminished  bliss 
Thou  sitt'st  secure  ;  while  all  created  things 
In  a  perpetual  motion  glide  along, 
And  every  instant  change  their  fleeting  forms. 
Oh  be  not  slack  to  hear !  my  time  is  winged, 
See  how  my  sun  declines !  'tis  sinking  fast, 
And  dying  into  darkness  ;  night  is  near, 
The  fatal  night  of  death,  when  I  shall  sleep 
Unactive  in  the  damp  and  gloomy  grave. 
Tliis  is  the  important  hour,  the  hour  of  grace 
And  offered  life  ;  Salvation  hangs  upon  it. 
Nor  let  my  importunity  offend  thee, 
'T  is  now,  't  is  now  or  never  I  must  speed  ; 
This  day,  this  hour,  this  fleeting  moment 's  more 
Than  I  can  boast,  or  truly  call  my  own. 
E'en  now  it  flies— 't  is  gone— 't  is  past  for  ever  ! 
But  oh  !  the  strict  account  liiave  to  give 
Remains  uncancelled ;  yet  my  pardon  stands, 
Perhaps,  unsealed,  or  not  to  me  confirmed. 
Regard  my  anguish,  while  I  call  aloud 
For  mercy  and  a  signal  of  thy  love. 
Before  I  die,  oh  let  my  longing  soul 
Receive  an  earnest  of  its  future  bliss." 


170  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

CATHERINE  COCKBTJRN. 

This  remarkable  woman  was  born  in  London,  on  the 
16th  of  August,  1679.  Both  her  parents  were  Scotch. 
Her  father,  Captain  David  Trotter,  was  a  commodore  in 
the  Koyal  Navy ;  a  man  of  cultivated  mind  and  elegant 
taste,  eminent  for  courage,  integrity,  and  honour;  re- 
spected by  the  noblest  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  and  per- 
sonally known  to  King  Charles  II.  and  the  Duke  of 
York,  who  admired  his  high  qualities  and  appreciated  his 
distinguished  services. 

Captain  Trotter  assisted  in  the  demolition  of  Tangier  in 
1683,  and  being  subsequently  sent  to  convoy  the  fleet  of 
merchant  ships  belonging  to  the  Turkey  Company,  died  of 
the  plague  at  Alexandretta  (Iscanderoon),  early  in  the 
year  1684.  His  property  having  fallen  into  dishonest 
hands,  the  two-fold  affliction  of  bereavement  and  poverty 
fell  at  once  upon  his  widow  and  children. 

Her  mother  was  Sarah  Bellenden,  a  near  relation  of 
Lord  Bellenden,  and  of  the  Duke  of  Lauderdale,  and  the 
Earl  of  Perth. 

During  the  short  remainder  of  King  Charles  II.'s  reign 
Mrs.  Trotter  had  a  pension  from  the  Admiralty,  and  Queen 
Anne  made  her  an  allowance  of  20?.  a-year.  It  is  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  widow  also  received  assistance  from  her 
husband's  brother,  and  from  her  own  high-born  and  wealthy 
cousins,  in  bringing  up  her  two  fatherless  children.  Both 
were  daughters.  The  eldest  married  Dr.  Inglis,  a  medical 
officer,  who  attended  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  in  his 
campaigns,  and  became  physician-general  to  the  army. 

Catherine,  the  youngest,  was  early  remarkable  for  her 
sagacious  intellect,  for  her  facility  in  acquiring  knowledge, 
her  cleverness  in  teaching  herself  the  art  of  penmanship, 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  171 

and  her  delight  in  making  extemporary  verse.  Nothing  is 
recorded  of  her  education,  but  from  her  own  allusion  to  it 
in  her  *  Poem  on  the  Busts/  it  may  be  inferred  to  have  been 
slight  and  ordinary.  Nothing,  however,  could  repress  her 
eager  desire  for  information ;  and  obstacles,  as  usual, 
proved  incentives  to  effort.  She  read  with  avidity,  and 
wrote  with  emulative  zeal ;  works  of  imagination  occupy- 
ing, as  in  such  cases  they  are  wont,  her  childish  attention ; 
and  these,  as  her  reasoning  powers  matured,  and  her  judg- 
ment became  formed,  giving  place  to  tractates  and  treatises 
on  moral  philosophy  and  religion.  She  taught  herself  the 
French  language,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  a  friend, 
acquired  the  Latin.  Her  "  Verses  written  at  the  age 'of 
fourteen,  and  sent  to  Mr.  Beville  Higgons,  on  his  sickness 
and  recovery  from  the  small-pox,"  though  rather  a  bold 
avowal  of  sympathy  with  the  "lovely  youth,"  and  of 
admiration  for  his  "  matchless  charms,"  were  evidently 
well-meant  admonitions  to  resignation,  and  to  the  con- 
scientious application  of  the  high  qualities  and  fine  "  parts  " 
ascribed  to  him. 

Her  muse  was  always  didactic,  and  although  her  '  Songs/ 
after  the  evil  fashion  of  her  time,  were  full  of  eyes,  and 
sighs,  and  amatory  nonsense,  they  inculcated  self-govern- 
ment and  morality. 

The  professional  connections  of  her  father,  the  aris- 
tocratic relationships  of  her  mother,  and  the  celebrity 
early  won  by  her  own  extraordinary  talents,  gained  her  a 
large  circle  of  acquaintance;  and  although  straitened  in 
the  means  of  subsistence,  and  probably  possessing  little  of 
her  own  but  the  earnings  of  her  pen,  Catherine  Trotter 
moved  in  the  best  society,  and  was  a  frequent  and  welcome 
guest  in  the  houses  of  the  rich  and  great :  her  beauty,  and 
the  unaffected  sweetness  of  her  manners,  bearing  the  re- 
sistless charm  of  unassorted  mental  superiority. 


172         LITERAEY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Her  first  dramatic  production  was  the  tragedy  of  *  Agnes 
de  Castro,'  which  was  successfully  performed,  in  the  year 
1695,  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  and  printed  in  the  following 
year,  with  a  dedication  to  the  Earl  of  Dorset  and  Middle- 
sex, from  which  it  appears  that  his  Lordship  was  one  of 
her  personal  friends  and  advisers.  This  tragedy  was  not 
based  upon  historic  fact,  but  upon  Aphara  Behn's  English 
translation  of  a  French  novel. 

In  1697,  Catherine  Trotter  addressed  to  Mr.  Congreve  a 
set  of  complimentary  verses  on  his  l  Mourning  Bride,'  and 
thus  either  created  or  strengthened  the  interest  which  that 
poet  took  in  her  literary  proceedings.  His  published  letter 
to'her  shows  that  they  had  been  previously  acquainted. 

In  1698,  her  second  tragedy,  '  Fatal  Friendship,'  was 
performed  a.t  the  then  new  theatre  in  Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. 
It  was  afterwards  printed  with  a  dedication  to  the  Princess 
of  Wales,  and  not  only  established  Catherine  Trotter's 
reputation  as  a  dramatic  writer,  and  brought  down  a 
shower  of  complimentary  verses,  but  increased  the  number 
of  her  powerful,  fashionable,  and  eminent  friends ;  and,  it 
may  reasonably  be  supposed,  produced  great  pecuniary 
profit. 

In  1700,  she  was  one  of  the  presumptuous  Englishwomen 
who,  under  the  several  names  of  the  Nine  Muses,  bewailed 
in  verse  the  death  of  Dryden.  She  was  consequently 
praised  and  addressed  as  a  Muse  by  a  troop  of  admiring 
rhymers. 

In  some  verses  entitled  '  Calliope's  Directions  how  to 
Deserve  and  Distinguish  the  Muse's  Inspirations,'  the 
strong,  clear  sense  of  Catherine  Trotter  is  conspicuously 
shown  by  her  definition  of  the  uses  of  tragic,  comic,  and 
satiric  poetry.  Of  course,  as  Calliope,  she  presided  only 
over  heroic  strains  and  general  eloquence,  and  it  would 
have  been  inappropriate  to  treat  of  any  other  kind  of 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  173 

verse.     The  quotation  of  a  few  lines  will  show  the  style  of 
these  '  Directions :' — 

11  Let  none  presume  the  hallowed  way  to  tread 
By  other  tlian  the  noblest  motives  led  : 
If  for  a  sordid  gain,  or  glittering  fame, 
To  please  without  instructing  be  your  aim, 
To  lower  means  your  grovelling  thoughts  confine, 
Unworthy  of  an  art  that's  all  divine." 

Early  in  the  year  1701,  her  comedy  of  *  Love  at  a  Loss, 
or  Most  Votes  carry  it,'  was  performed  at  the  Theatre 
Royal,  and  published  in  the  month  of  May  of  the  same 
year,  with  a  dedication  to  Lady  Piers.  This  Lady  Piers, 
according  to  Dr.  Birch,  was  the  wife  of  Sir  George  Piers, 
a  distinguished  officer  under  the  Duke  of  Marlborough. 
His  name  does  not  appear  in  the  pedigree  of  Piers  of 
Tristernagh,  but  he  was  probably  of  the  same  stock,  Piers, 
of  Piers  Hall,  in  the  county  of  York.  Mr.  Noble,  in  his 
'  Continuation  of  Granger's  Biographical  History  of  Eng- 
land,' *  states  that  Sir  George  Piers,  Bart.,  was  of  Stonepit, 
in  the  parish  of  Scale,  and  county  of  Kent ;  that  his  wife 
was  Sarah,  daughter  of  Matthew  Eoydon,  Esq.,  of  Eoydon, 
in  Yorkshire  ;  that  she  became  a  widow  in  the  year  1720, 
and  that  he  had  failed  in  ascertaining  the  date  of  her 
decease.  "  She  had,"  remarks  Dr.  Birch,  "  contracted  a 
very  early  esteem  for,  and  most  intimate  and  unreserved 
friendship,"  with  Catherine  Trotter. 

Later  in  the  same  year,  1701,  her  third  tragedy,  '  The 
Unhappy  Penitent/  was  performed  at  Drury  Lane,  and 
published  in  August,  with  a  dedication  to  Lord  Halifax, 
and  a  set  of  verses,  by  Lady  Piers,  prefixed,  inscribed  "  To 
the  excellent  Mrs.  Catherine  Trotter." 

In  the  year  1701,  she  wrote  her  *  Defence  of  Mr.  Locke's 
Essay  of  Human  Understanding,'  and  it  was  published  in 

*  Vol.  iii.,  p.  447. 


174  LITERARY  WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND. 

May,  1702.  This  gained  for  her  the  personal  friendship 
of  Locke  and  of  Lady  Masham,  and  was,  through  them, 
the  means  of  introducing  her  to  many  eminent  persons, 
among  them  being  Mr.  Peter  King,  then  a  barrister  and 
member  of  parliament,  who  was  the  maternal  nephew  of 
Locke.  Peter  King  was  chosen  Kecorder  of  London  in 
1708,  and  knighted  on  that  occasion  by  Queen  Anne.  In 
1714,  he  was  appointed  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas ;  in  May,  1725,  created  a  peer  by  King 
George  I.  as  Lord  King,  Baron  of  Ockham ;  and  in  June 
made  Lord  High  Chancellor,  which  office  he  held  until 
1733.  In  July,  1734,  he  died. 

When  childhood  merges  in  youth,  and  the  mind  awakens 
to  a  keen  sense  of  forlorn  dependence  on  Almighty  power, 
and  of  awful  responsibility  to  a  just,  unerring  Judge, — per- 
ceiving the  afflictions,  the  hazards,  and  the  difficulties 
which  beset  life's  probationary  course,  and  conscious  that 
immortal  joy  or  woe  await  its  close, — much  perplexity  is 
often  felt  in  the  choice  of  a  clew  through  this  world's  dark 
labyrinth.  Considering  the  position  and  connections  of 
her  parents,  it  is  probable  that  Catherine  Trotter  had  not 
been  trained  to  early  piety,  and  consequently  that  when 
this  crisis  of  the  soul  occurred,  the  first  earnest  instructions 
in  religion  which  seemed  to  meet  her  eager  need  would 
be  welcomed  as  heaven-sent  messages.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, she  probably  met  with  a  Koman  Catholic 
teacher,  and,  as  a  natural  result,  she  zealously  adopted  his 
creed.  In  this  she  continued  for  many  years,  resting 
quiescently  upon  its  first  impressions,  and  somewhat  drawn 
aside  from  the  direct  pursuit  of  life's  highest  objects  by 
the  specious  design  of  reforming  the  morals  of  the  age  by 
means  of  a  purified  and  ennobled  theatre.  Meanwhile, 
her  strict  observance  of  the  fast-days  proved  so  injurious 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  175 

to  her  health,  that  in  October,  1703,  her  friend  and  physi- 
cian, Dr.  Denton  Nicholas,  wrote  her  a  letter  of  serious 
remonstrance  upon  the  subject,  and  desired  her  "  to  abate 
of  those  rigours  of  abstinence,  as  insupportable  to  a  con- 
stitution naturally  infirm,"  requesting  that  his  opinion 
might  be  communicated  to  her  friends  and  to  her  con- 
fessor. 

Her  health,  even  at  its  best,  was  too  delicate  to  allow 
her  to  walk  more  than  a  mile  to  church  and  back,  on  a 
summer's  day,  without  fatigue  which  amounted  to  illness ; 
and  a  weakness  of  sight  always  rendered  it  painful  to  her 
to  write  by  candlelight.  Yet  this  fragile  creature  possessed 
self-relying  energy  which  enabled  her  not  only  to  sustain 
the  mental  and  manual  labour  of  careful  literary  composi- 
tion tlirough  continuous  months  and  years,  but  also  to 
transact  with  methodical  exactness  all  the  complicated 
business  attendant  upon  the  performance,  printing,  and 
publication  of  her  works. 

From  1701,  until  her  marriage  in  1708,  Catherine 
Trotter  kept  up  a  regular  correspondence  with  her  friend 
George  Burnet,  Esq.,  of  Kemnay,  a  man  of  the  highest 
character  and  of  distinguished  abilities.  During  the  greater 
part  of  the  period  he  was  a  sojourner  in  foreign  lands,  and 
more  especially  at  the  courts  of  Berlin  and  Hanover,  where 
he  spread  the  fame  of  "  la  nouvelle  Sappho-Ecossoise," 
and  excited  the  curiosity  of  Leibnitz  to  become  acquainted 
with  her  philosophical  works. 

It  may  be  inferred  from  many  passages  in  his  letters 
that  he  would  gladly  have  raised  for  himself  a  tender 
interest  in  the  heart  of  his  young  friend ;  and  from  hers, 
that,  with  unaffected  candour  and  cordial  esteem,  she 
repelled  every  approach  towards  a  declaration  of  love. 

She  had  many  admirers,  but  never  was  led  by  the  per- 


176  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

suasions  of  her  friends,  or  the  temptations  of  wealth  and 
rank,  to  encourage  the  addresses  of  men  for  whom  she  felt 
no  preference. 

Her  conversation  was  attractive,  her  manners  graceful 
and  engaging,  her  figure  was  small  and  elegant,  her  com- 
plexion delicately  fair,  and  her  eyes  radiant  with  intelli- 
gence. In  youth  she  was  beautiful,  and  even  in  old  age 
she  continued  to  be  lovely.  Her  natural  disposition 
was  cheerful  and  obliging,  and  the  high  principles  which 
she  professed  regulated  every  thought  and  act  of  her  daily 
life. 

In  1704,  Catherine  Trotter  composed  a  poem  on  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough's  gaining  the  battle  of  Blenheim, 
which,  being  highly  approved  of  by  the  hero  and  his 
family,  was  put  into  print. 

About  that  period  she  had  some  hopes  of  obtaining, 
through  the  powerful  interest  of  the  Marlborough  family, 
a  pension  from  the  crown,  to  which  her  father's  long  ser- 
vices and  losses  in  the  cause  of  his  King  and  country  gave 
a  plausible  claim.  This,  however,  she  failed  to  obtain,  and 
received  only  a  gratuity. 

After  the  battle  of  Bamilies,  in  1706,  she  produced 
another  poem  in  praise  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and 
on  both  occasions  her  verses  were  ranked  among  the  best 
which  recorded  his  fame. 

In  the  same  year,  her  tragedy,  called  '  The  Revolution  of 
Sweden,'  founded  on  Vertot's  account  of  Gustavus  Ericson, 
was  performed  at  the  Queen's  Theatre  in  the  Haymarket ; 
and  subsequently  printed,  with  a  dedication  to  Lady  Harriet 
Godolphin,  eldest  daughter  of  the  great  Duke,  and  after 
his  decease  Duchess  of  Marlborough  in  her  own  right. 

Her  sister,  Mrs.  Inglis,  residing  at  Salisbury,  and  her 
mother  spending  much  of  her  time  there,  Catherine  was 


LITKKAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         177 

induced  to  make  long  visits  to  that  city,  extending  some- 
times to  the  period  of  fifteen  months;  but  her  favourite 
;il Hide  was  at  "  Mr.  Finney's,  in  Beaufort  Buildings  on  the 
Strand,"  where,  in  private  lodgings,  she  could,  without 
domestic  restraint  or  the  disturbance  of  young  children, 
give  herself  up  to  literary  occupations.  Among  the  happy 
results  of  her  sojournings  at  Salisbury  was  her  acquaint- 
ance with  Bishop  Burnet,  and  with  his  third  wife,  Eliza- 
beth, eldest  daughter  of  Sir  Richard  Blake,  and  widow 
of  Robert  Berkeley,  Esq.,  of  Spetchley.  Mrs.  Burnet 
had  a  large  independent  income,  which  she  bestowed  in 
charity,  aiding  the  erection  of  a  hospital  which  her  first 
husband  had  founded,  establishing  and  maintaining  schools, 
and  relieving  the  spiritual  and  temporal  wants  of  the 
necessitous  far  and  near.  She  was  a  woman  of  deep  piety, 
and  the  author  or  compiler  of  a  book  called  *  A  Method  of 
Devotion.'  She  took  an  affectionate  interest  in  Catherine 
Trotter  until  she  died,  February  3,  1709. 

In  Catherine's  thoughtful  mind  a  sense  of  duty  towards 
God,  and  a  desire  to  reform  and  benefit  the  world,  were 
ever  predominant ;  but  at  different  periods  of  her  life  she 
sought  to  effect  this  object  by  different  means.  In  the 
year  1707,  after  a  course  of  severe  study,  deep  reflection, 
and  earnest  prayer,  she  abjured  the  religion  of  Rome,  and 
wrote  and  published  her  *  Two  Letters  concerning  a  Guide 
in  Controversies/  to  which  a  preface  by  Bishop  Burnet 
was  prefixed.  The  first  letter  was  addressed  to  Mr. 
Bennet,  a  priest,  and  the  second  to  Mr.  Harman,  as  a  re- 
joinder to  an  answer  which  she  had  received. 

The  strength  and  clearness  of  her  arguments,  the  com- 
prehensiveness and  acute  force  of  reasoning,  and  the  per- 
spicuity of  expression,  are  admirable,  and  such  as  few 

N 


178  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

female  minds  could  have  put  forth,  even  under  the  stimulus 
of  self-interest  in  self- vindication. 

No  scruple  ever  again  affected  her  staunch  adherence  to 
the  orthodox  faith  of  the  Church  of  England. 

In  the  summer  of  that  year  (1707),  while  staying  with 
Madame  de  Vere,  at  Ockham  Mills,  near  Kipley,  in  Surrey, 
she  met  with  a  young  clergyman  named  Fenn,  of  whose 
preaching,  conversation,  and  character,  she  thoroughly 
approved.  Mr.  Fenn  fell  deeply  in  love  with  her,  made 
her  an  offer  of  marriage,  and  obtained  for  his  suit  the 
sanction  and  intercession  of  Lady  Piers. 

Catherine  Trotter  accepted  his  friendship,  and,  but  for 
the  preference  she  already  felt  for  another  person,  would 
have  judged  it  right  to  become  his  wife.  The  favoured 
rival  was  Mr.  Cockburn,  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman,  dis- 
tantly related  to  the  Burnet  family  and  to  her  own,  with 
whom  she  had  for  some  months  held  a  friendly  correspond- 
ence, in  which  they  discussed  those  subjects  of  philoso- 
phical and  practical  religion  which  were  of  principal  interest 
to  both.  The  addresses  of  Mr.  Fenn  brought  mutual  con- 
viction, and  matters  came  to  a  climax. 

Mr.  Cockburn  confessed  his  love,  proposed,  and  was 
accepted.  He  took  holy  orders  in  the  Church  of  England 
in  1708,  married  Catherine  Trotter,  received  the  "Dona- 
tive "  of  Nayland,  near  Colchester,  and,  leaving  his  bride 
in  London  to  arrange  her  affairs  and  to  purchase  furniture, 
he  took  possession  of  his  pastoral  charge  in  June,  and  wel- 
comed her  to  their  new  home  in  the  autumn  of  the  same 
year. 

How  long  they  resided  there  neither  Dr.  Birch  nor  Mrs. 
Cockburn's  writings  inform  us ;  but,  in  the  course  of  time, 
Mr.  Cockburn  accepted  the  curacy  of  St.  Dunstan's  Church, 


LITKRAIIY    WOMEN   OF    ENOLANh.  179 

Fleet-street,  and  returned  with  his  family  to  London,  where 
they  resided  until  the  year  1714,  when  the  death  of  Queen 
Anne  took  place.  The  oath  of  abjuration  required  on  the 
accession  of  King  George  I.  aroused  scruples  in  the  mind 
of  Mr.  Cockburn,  and  he  refused  to  take  it,  although  he  con- 
scientiously offered  up  the  public  prayers  for  the  reigning 
sovereign  and  the  royal  family.  He  was  consequently 
deprived  of  his  employment  in  the  church,  and  reduced  to 
poverty.  During  the  next  twelve  years  he  maintained  his 
family  by  teaching  La.tin  to  the  students  «  of  the  Academy 
in  Chancery  Lane,"  while  his  wife,  ever  anxious  for  self- 
improvement,  and  using  all  the  troubles  of  earth  as  pre- 
paratives for  heaven,  gave  herself  up  heart  and  soul  to 
household  duties,  industriously  applied  herself  to  needle- 
work, and  all  sorts  of  manual  occupations,  and  cheerfully 
devoted  her  fine  faculties  to  the  solace  of  her  husband,  and 
to  the  education  of  her  children. 

Mr.  Cockburn,  having  at  last  convinced  himself  of  the 
propriety  of  taking  the  oath,  to  which  he  had  so  long 
objected,  accepted,  in  1727,  the  charge  of  the  episcopal 
congregation  at  Aberdeen.  Thither  he  was  accompanied 
by  his  family ;  and  his  faithful  wife  bade,  in  that  year,  an 
everlasting  farewell  to  London,  the  scene  of  her  many 
triumphs  and  many  trials. 

Soon  after  their  removal  her  friend,  the  Lord  High 
Chancellor  King,  presented  her  husband  to  the  living  of 
Long  Horseley,  near  Morpeth,  in  the  county  of  North- 
umberland ;  but  they  continued  at  Aberdeen  until  the  year 
1737,  when  the  Bishop  of  Durham  ordered  him  to  take  up 
his  residence  in  his  parish.  The  clerical  residence  stood 
so  far  from  the  church  of  Long  Horseley,  that  when  rough 
weather  and  feeble  health  disabled  Mrs.  Cockburn  from 
riding  on  horseback  to  attend  the  Sunday  services,  she  was 

N2 


180  LITERAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

constrained  to  stay  at  home,  unless  a  still  more  distant 
neighbour,  Mrs.  Ogle,  chanced  to  be  in  the  country,  and 
to  give  her  a  seat  in  her  chaise  and  four,  or  her  coach 
and  six. 

From  the  year  of  her  marriage,  1708,  until  1724,  Mrs. 
Cockburn  had  published  nothing.  In  the  latter  year  she 
wrote  her  '  Letter  to  Dr.  Holdsworth,'  and  having  sent  it 
to  him.,  and  received  an  elaborate  controversial  answer,  she 
published  her  l Letter*  in  January,  1727.  To  this  Dr. 
Holdsworth  publicly  replied,  and  Mrs.  Cockburn  wrote 
an  able  rejoinder ;  but  the  booksellers  not  being  willing 
to  undertake  its  responsibility,  the  '  Vindication  of  Mr. 
Locke's  Christian  Principles  from  the  injurious  imputa- 
tions of  Dr.  Holdsworth,'  remained  in  manuscript  until  it 
was  published  among  her  collected  works. 

In  1732,  while  living  at  Aberdeen,  she  wrote  the  ( Verses 
occasioned  by  the  Busts  in  the  Queen's  Hermitage,'  which 
were  printed  in  the  '  Gentleman's  Magazine '  for  May 
1737. 

•  In  August,  1743,  her  l  Kemarks  upon  some  Writers  in 
the  Controversy  concerning  the  Foundation  of  Moral  Duty 
and  Obligation'  were  published  in  a  serial  called  "The 
History  of  the  Works  of  the  Learned.'  These  '  Kemarks  ' 
were  well  received,  and  excited  great  admiration,  and 
Mrs.  Cockburn's  friend,  Dr.  Sharp,  archdeacon  of  North- 
umberland, having  read  them  in  manuscript,  engaged  her 
in  an  epistolary  discussion  on  the  subject  of  which  they 
treat.  The  correspondence  began  August  8, 1743,  and  was 
concluded  October  2,  1747. 

Dr.  Kutherford's  *  Essay  on  the  Nature  and  Obligations 
of  Virtue '  having  appeared  in  1744,  her  active  mind  was 
again  aroused  for  public  controversy,  and  in  April  1747, 
her  *  Kemarks  upon  the  Principles  and  Reasonings  of  Dr. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  181 

Rutherford's  Essay  on  the  Nature  and  Obligations  of 
Virtue,  in  Vindication  of  the  contrary  Principles  and 
Reasonings  enforced  in  the  Writings  of  the  late  Dr. 
Samuel  Clarke/  were  published  with  a  preface  by  Bishop 
Warburton. 

The  extraordinary  reputation  acquired  by  this  able 
work,  suggested  to  some  friends,  who  submitted  the  scheme 
to  Lady  Isabella  Finch,  the  thought  of  raising  a  subscrip- 
tion for  the  republication  of  all  Mrs.  Cockburn's  works, 
which  the  author  herself  undertook  to  edit.  This  plan 
was  zealously  supported  by  Mrs.  Cockburn's  fashionable 
and  eminent  friends,  but  uncontrollable  circumstances 
prevented  its  full  execution. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cockburn  had  four  children ;  a  son  and 
three  daughters.  A  letter  of  advice  to  the  former,  written 
by  his  mother  for  his  guidance  in  early  manhood,  is  full 
of  wisdom  and  piety.  Religion,  Employment,  and  Women, 
are  the  heads  of  her  discourse.  Under  the  second  she 
says : — "  Divinity  is  the  profession  you  have  been  designed 
for  from  your  birth;  but  let  no  views  determine  your 
choice  to  that  sacred  calling  but  a  sincere  desire  of  pro- 
moting the  glory  of  God,  and  the  salvation  of  men." 

In  subsequent  letters  to  her  niece,  Mrs.  Arbuthnot,  Mrs. 
Cockburn  often  alludes  to  her  "good  son"  with  all  the 
satisfaction  of  a  happy  mother.  The  heart  of  her  husband 
safely  trusted  in  her,  and  her  children  arose  and  called  her 
blessed!  In  1743  she  lost  one  of  her  daughters.  In 
January,  1749,  she  lost  her  husband.  Under  this  severe 
shock  her  feeble  health  gave  way,  although  her  well-dis- 
ciplined heart  sustained  it  with  perfect  resignation;  and 
on  the  llth  of  May,  1749,  Catherine  Cockburn  died.  She 
was  buried  beside  her  husband  and  her  youngest  daughter, 
at  Long  Horseley,  and  on  their  tomb  was  inscribed,  as  suit- 


182  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

able  to  each  and  all,  one  sentence  altered  from  Proverbs 
xxxi.  31,  "Let  their  own  works  praise  them  in  the  gates!" 
Prefixed  to  her  'Fatal  Friendship'  are  many  sets  of 
eulogistic  verses  addressed  to  the  authoress ;  one  by 
P.  Harm  an,  who  also  wrote  the  prologue ;  one  by  an 
anonymous  writer,  probably  Lady  Piers,  '  To  my  much 
esteemed  Friend/  in  which  are  the  lines  : — 

"  Your  numbers  flow  as  if  the  muses  all 
Consulted  nothing  but  their  rise  and  fall." 

Another  set,  also  anonymous,  exalts  her  praise  above  that 
of  Orinda  and  Astrea,  Catherine  Philips  and  Aphara 
Behn,  adding : — 

"  More  just  applause  is  yours,  who  check  the  rage 
Of  reigning  vice,  that  has  debauched  the  stage, 
And  dare  show  virtue  in  a  vicious  age  :" 

and  yet  another,  written  by  Mr.  John  Hughes,  who 
hails  her  as  "  the  first  of  stage  reformers."  The  tragedy 
thus  applauded  does  not  contain  a  single  line  of  real 
poetry,  and  does  contain  indecorous  allusions,  which 
would  not  be  tolerated  either  on  the  stage  or  elsewhere 
in  modern  times.  Hence  may  be  inferred  the  low 
standard  of  poetry  in  the  year  1698,  and  the  gross  profli- 
gacy of  an  age  which  reputed  this  play  to  be  a  corrective 
model  of  propriety.  Yet  the  acknowledgment  that  human 
life  is  a  state  of  probation,  the  assertion  that  good  should 
be  done,  and  evil  resisted,  runs  through  every  scene :  and 
the  strength  of  principle  which  enabled  a  young  girl 
publicly  to  maintain  such  opinions,  in  the  face  of  rampant 
scepticism  and  general  depravity,  justly  commanded  re- 
spectful admiration. 

The  language  is  plain  and  unaffected,  but  occasionally 
deformed,  after  the  colloquial  fashion  introduced  at  the 
Restoration,  by  the  abbreviated  words  "  'em"  for  them,  &c. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  183 

Tln»  plot  is  commonplace,  but  well  complicated,  and  it  pro- 
duces some  good  dramatic  situations.  The  moral  drawn  at 
the  conclusion  is : — 

"  None  know  their  strength,  let  the  most  resolute 
Learn  from  this  story  to  distrust  themselves, 
Nor  think  hy  fear  the  victory  less  sure  ; 
Our  greatest  danger  's  when  we  're  most  secure." 

This  tragedy,  having  been  deemed  by  contemporary 
critics  the  best  of  Catherine  Trotter's  dramatic  compo- 
sitions, leaves  the  reader  little  cause  to  join  in  Dr.  Birch's 
regret  that  want  of  space  enforced  the  omission  of  the  four 
other  plays  from  his  edition  of  her  works. 

The  best  of  her  productions  in  verse  is  '  A  Poem,  occa- 
sioned by  the  Busts  set  up  in  the  Queen's  Hermitage, 
designed  to  be  presented  with  a  book  in  vindication  of 
Mr.  Locke,  which  was  to  have  been  inscribed  to  Her 
Majesty.'  With  considerable  skill  and  persuasive  sweet- 
ness she  draws  an  argument  from  the  honour  done  by 
Queen  Caroline  to  the  busts  of  Clarke,  Locke,  and 
Newton,  and  the  patronage  which  Her  Majesty  had  ex- 
tended even  to  the  lowly  rural  bard,  Nicholas  Duck,  for  the 
Queen's  notice  and  protection  to  be  granted  to  herself:— 

"  But  not  for  such  illustrious  names  alone 

Has  that  choice  seat  her  care  of  merit  shown  ; 

Shared  by  the  most  obscure,  who  greatly  aim, 

Struggling  through  all  impediments  to  fame, 

A  daring  bard  she  views,  though  deep  distressed, 

By  art  unaided,  and  by  want  depressed, 

Whilst  toils  the  day,  and  cares  the  night  molest ; 

Yet  snatching  moments  from  those  cares  and  toils 

To  court  the  muse,  transported  by  her  smiles." 

***** 
"  Oh,  would  the  mighty  queen  once  more  descend 

The  low  to  raise,  the  fearful  to  defend  ; 

Whom  yet  nor  fears  nor  malice  could  avert 

From  daring  injured  merit  to  assert ; 

Though  not  the  flail  and  sickle  could  retard, 

Or  cares  discourage  more  the  rural  bard, 

Than  those  restraints,  which  have  our  sex  confine] 

By  partial  custom,  check  the  soaring  mind  ; 

Learning  denied  us,  we  at  random  tread 


184  LITEEARY  WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Unbeaten  paths  that  late  to  knowledge  lead  ; 

By  secret  steps,  break  through  the  obstructed  way, 

Nor  dare  acquirements  gained  by  stealth  display. 

If  some  adventurous  genius  rare  arise, 

Who  on  exalted  themes  her  talent  tries, 

She  fears  to  give  the  work,  though  praised,  a  name, 

And  flies  not  more  from  infamy  than  fame." 

*  *  *  *        .    * 

"  Oh,  might  I  thus  the  blest  occasion  prove 
Fair  emulation  in  the  sex  to  move ! 
Beholding  one,  who  could  but  well  design, 
Protected  thus  by  Royal  Caroline, 
Important  is  the  boon,  nor  I  alone, 
The  female  world  its  influence  would  own 
To  approve  themselves  to  thee,  reform  their  taste, 
No  more  their  time  in  trifling  pleasures  waste, 
In  search  of  truths  sublime,  undaunted  soar, 
And  the  wide  realms  of  science  deep  explore. 
Quadrille  should  then  resign  the  tyrant  sway, 
Which  rules  despotic,  blending  night  with  day  ; 
Usurps  on  all  the  offices  of  life, 
The  duties  of  the  mother,  friend,  and  wife, 
Learning,  with  milder  reign,  would  more  enlarge 
Their  powers,  and  aid  those  duties  to  discharge, 
To  nobler  gain  improve  their  vacant  hours  : 
Be  Newton,  Clarke,  and  Locke  their  matadores, 
Then,  as  this  happy  isle  already  vies 
In  arms  with  foes,  in  arts  with  her  allies, 
No  more  excelled  in  aught  by  Gallia's  coast, 
Our  Albion  too  should  of  her  Daciers  boast." 

Although  much  has  been  said  and  written  about  Locke 
by  the  ablest  metaphysicians  of  his  age,  and  of  each  suc- 
ceeding generation,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  his  own 
meaning  in  his  own  words  has  ever  been  more  truly  con- 
strued than  by  Mrs.  Cockburn.  What  she  wrote  concern- 
ing his  opinions  during  his  life  was  approved  by  Locke 
himself;  what  she  wrote  of  them  after  his  decease  was 
acknowledged  to  be  correct  by  his  most  intimate  associates, 
to  whom  he  had  frequently  and  familiarly  expounded  them. 

Space  cannot  be  afforded  here  for  extracts  of  sufficient 
length  to  do  justice  to  her  controversial  writings.  The  fol- 
lowing show  her  style. 

In  the  preface  to  her  '  Letter  to  Dr.  Holdsworth,'  Mrs. 


LITKKAKY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  185 

Cockburn  says: — "The  great  zeal  Mr.  Locke  showed  for 
the  conversion  of  deists,  the  serious  veneration  he  expresses 
for  the  Divine  Revelation,  and  (how  little  soever  he  was 
fond  of  particular  systems)  the  care  he  took  not  to  oppose 
any  established  articles  of  faith,  make  it  a  work  worthy  a 
sincere  Christian  to  support  his  character  against  the  inju- 
diciousness  of  those  who  have  reproached  him  as  a  Socinian 
heretic,  -an  enemy,  an  underminer  of  religion.  That  there 
are  no  plain  proofs  from  his  writings  to  ground  such  a 
charge  upon,  is  a  sufficient  foundation  for  this  defence  ;  but 
that  he  was  certainly  no  Socinian,  I  am  farther  well 
assured  by  the  authority  of  one  who  was  intimate  to  his 
most  private  thoughts,  and  who  is  as  eminent  for  his 
probity,  as  for  the  high  station  he  at  present  possesses." 

The  person  here  alluded  to  was  probably  Lord  King. 

In  a  letter  to  her  niece,  dated  "Long  Horseley,  Sep- 
tember 29,  1748,"  Mrs.  Cockburn  says : — "  I  must  own  to 
you  I  am  not  myself  satisfied,  upon  a  review,  of  what  Mr. 
Locke  has  said  on  moral  relations.  His  plan  led  him  to 
consider  them  only  with  reference  to  the  present  constitu- 
tion of  things ;  and,  though  he  is  very  free  from  the  charge 
of  making  the  nature  of  morality  uncertain,  I  fear  he  has 
given  occasion  to  the  interested  scheme  so  much  in  fashion 
of  late,  but  carried,  I  dare  say,  far  beyond  what  he  in- 
tended." 

It  is  interesting  to  know  Mrs.  Cockburn's  opinion  of  the 
most  illustrious  of  all  her  contemporaries,  Bishop  Butler. 

In  letters  to  Mrs.  Arbuthnot,  written  at  Aberdeen,  in 
1738,  she  thus  mentions  him: — "He  is  a  most  judicious 
writer,  has  searched  deeply  into  human  nature,  and  is  by 
some  thought  obscure ;  but  he  thinks  with  great  clearness, 
and  there  needs  only  a  deep  attention  to  understand  him 
perfectly." 


186  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

"  Whilst  our  modern  moralists  have  contended  to  establish 
moral  virtue,  some  on  the  moral  sense  alone,  some  on  the 
essential  difference  and  relations  of  things,  and  some  on  the 
sole  will  of  God,  they  have  all  been  deficient ;  for  neither 
of  those  principles  are  sufficient  exclusive  of  others,  but  all 
three  together  make  an  immoveable  foundation  for,  and 
obligation  to,  moral  practice;  the  moral  sense,  or  con- 
science, and  the  essential  difference  of  things  discovering 
to  us  what  the  will  of  our  Maker  is." 

"I  have  so  great  an  opinion  of  the  author  of  'The 
Analogy,'  that  I  no  sooner  saw  it  advertised  than  I  made  it 
my  business  to  inquire  after  it,  and  procured  the  reading 
it  twice.  I  think  the  design  finely  executed,  especially  in 
the  first  part,  and  all  the  objections  of  the  deists  very  well 
obviated." 

"  That  valuable  performance,  and  several  others  that 
have  come  out  within  these  few  years,  are  of  great  use  to 
satisfy  and  confirm  the  humble  believer  in  his  pious  and 
just  opinion,  that  God  best  knows  by  what  means  it  is  fit  for 
him,  in  the  wisdom  of  his  government,  to  be  reconciled  to 
mankind." 

In  letters  of  subsequent  date,  Mrs.  Cockburn  repeatedly 
mentions  Bishop  Butler  with  a  still  deeper  sense  of  the 
value  of  his  writings.  Dating  from  "Long  Horseley, 
October  2,  1747,"  and  again  addressing  Mrs.  Arbuthnot, 
she  says: — "I  assure  you  there  is  not  a  sentence  of  that 
author's  that  I  would  not  readily  subscribe  to,  so  perfectly 
I  am  satisfied  with  the  whole  tenor  of  his  doctrine."  This 
is  an  all-sufficient  exposition  of  Mrs.  Cockburn's  theological 
opinions. 

Much  amazement  has  been  expressed  at  the  long  suspen- 
sion of  Mrs.  Cockburn's  studies,  and  at  her  resuming  her 
pen  with  accumulated  power  after  it  had  lain  unexercised 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.  187 

for  the  public  during  a  period  of  sixteen  or  eighteen  years. 
The  commentators  upon  her  works  have  certainly  over- 
strained her  own  words  on  the  first  part  of  this  subject,  and 
drawn  from  them  an  unwarranted  inference.  Allowing  the 
fact  that  she  had  during  those  years  read  few  new  books, 
yet  she  had  undoubtedly  possessed  her  Bible,  the  works  of 
Shakspeare  and  Milton,  of  Lord  Bacon,  Cudworth,  and 
Bishop  Cumberland ;  and  such  an  intellect  as  hers  thus 
dieted  while  practically  exercised  in  seclusion,  became,  like 
one  of  the  Athletae  in  training,  all  nerve  and  sinew,  braced 
and  animated  for  the  noblest  efforts.  She  had  lived  so 
long  in  the  propulsive  centre  of  British  activity  that,  when 
sunk  into  obscurity,  the  gathering  in  of  her  reflections 
enriched  her  more  than  continued  opportunities  of  obser- 
vation would  have  done ;  and  her  fine  faculties  were  kept 
so  bright  and  keenly  edged  by  constant  use  and  friction, 
that  they  were  available  at  call,  either  as  ploughshares, 
sickles,  or  swords.  No  sooner  has  she  harvested  the  fields 
of  her  little  homestead,  than  she  is  found  ready  again  for 
the  lists  of  scholastic  controversy.  Her  reasoning  powers, 
her  comprehensive  knowledge,  her  acute  discrimination, 
her  steadfast  love  of  truth,  and  her  calm,  clear,  sense  of 
right  and  wrong,  always  render  her  a  formidable  champion. 
Her  eloquence  has  the  force  of  manly  argument,  with  the 
charm  of  feminine  persuasion. 

Her  compositions  have  had  their  day,  and  fulfilled  their 
appointed  purpose.  Let  those  persons  who  entertain  any 
doubt  of  her  extraordinary  mental  powers,  turn  for  convic- 
tion to  the  '  Remarks  upon  some  Writers  of  Controversy 
concerning  the  Foundation  of  Moral  Virtue  and  Moral 
Obligation/  in  Dr.  Birch's  edition  of  Mrs.  Cockburn's 
«  Works/  vol.  i.,  pp.  371-455,  and  to  the  « Remarks/  &c., 


188  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

vol.  ii.,  pp.  1-107.     One  of  the  best  passages  in  Buncombe's 
*  Feminead '  celebrates  her  memory : — 

"  But  say  what  matron  now  walks  musing  forth 
From  the  bleak  mountains  of  her  native  north  ? 
While  round  her  brows  two  sisters  of  the  Nine 
Poetic  wreaths  with  philosophic  twine  ! 
Hail,  Cockburn,  hail !  even  now  from  reason's  bowers 
Thy  Locke  delighted  culls  the  choicest  flowers 
To  deck  his  great,  successful  champion's  head, 
And  Clarke  expects  thee  in  the  laurel  shade. 
Though  long  to  dark  oblivious  wants  a  prey, 
Thy  aged  worth  passed  unperceived  away, 
Yet  Scotland  now  shall  ever  boast  thy  fame, 
While  England  mourns  thy  undistinguished  name, 
And  views  with  wonder,  in  a  female  mind, 
Philosopher,  divine,  and  poet  joined."* 


Pearch's  Collection,  vol.  iv.,  p.  191. 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  189 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE  POETESSES. 
A.D.  1750-1800. 

Frnnces  Duchess  of  Somerset  —  Elizabeth  Toilet  —  Miss  Pennington- 
Miss  Farrer  —  Anne  Viscountess  Irwin  —  Anne  Countess  Temple  - 
Anna  Williams  —  Lady  O'Neil  —  Susanna  Blamire  —  Mary  Robinson. 


"  By  a  cold  region  next  the  rider  goes, 
Where  all  lies  covered  in  eternal  snows, 
Where  no  bright  genius  drives  the  chariot  high, 
To  glitter  on  the  ground  and  gild  the  sky  ; 
Bleak,  level  realm,  where  frigid  styles  abound, 
Where  never  yet  a  daring  thought  was  found, 
But  counted  feet  is  poetry  defined 
And  starved  conceits,  that  chill  the  reader's  mind  ; 
A  little  sense  in  many  words  imply, 
And  drag  in  loitering  numbers  slowly  by."  * 


FRANCES  DUCHESS  OF  SOMERSET. 

FRANCES  THYNNE  was  one  of  the  two  daughters  and  only 
children  of  the  Hon.  Henry  Thynne,  only  son  of  Thomas, 
first  Viscount  Weymouth,  and  of  Grace,  daughter  and  heir 
of  Sir  George  Strode.  The  year  of  her  birth  is  not  re- 
corded by  Walpole,  nor  in  the  peerages  of  Debrett  or 
Burke.  Together  with  her  sister  Mary,  afterwards  Lady 
Brooke,  she  was  educated  with  great  care  under  the  im- 
mediate direction  of  her  parents,  and  spent  her  early  years 
at  Longleat,  where  she  formed  a  tender  and  enthusiastic 

*  'Essay  on  the  different  Styles  of  Poetry,'  by  Dr.  Pamoll,  Nichols's 
Collection,  vol.  iii.,  p.  221. 


190  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

friendship  with  Mrs.  Kowe,  who  was  many  years  her 
senior. 

She  seems  to  have  married  about  the  year  17 16,  and  the 
husband  of  her  friends'  selection  proved  happily  the  object 
of  her  true  affection.  He  was  Algernon  Seymour,  Earl  of 
Hertford  and  Baron  Percy.  They  had  two  children,  a  son 
George  and  a  daughter  Elizabeth. 

The  Countess  was  an  exemplary  wife  and  mother,  and  a 
model  of  virtuous  conduct  in  the  corrupt  court  of  George  II., 
where  she  held  for  several  years  the  office  of  a  lady  of  the 
bedchamber  to  Queen  Caroline. 

She  had  strong  tendencies  to  literature,  delighted  in  the 
unostentatious  exercise  of  her  own  fine  intellect,  was  the 
friend  of  Watts  and  Shenstone,  and  one  of  the  earliest 
patronesses  of  Thomson.  At  her  intercession  the  life  of 
the  profligate  poet  Savage  was  rescued  from  public  execu- 
tion ;  and  she  was  ever  ready  either  to  assist  the  merito- 
rious or  to  compassionate  the  wretched. 

In  1744,  she  had  the  deep  grief  of  losing  her  only  son,  a 
most  promising  and  beautiful  youth  of  nineteen,  who  died 
at  Bologna,  on  his  travels. 

By  the  death  of  Charles,  the  proud  Duke  of  Somerset, 
December  2,  1748,  all  the  family  honours  of  the  Seymours 
and  the  Percys  devolved  upon  her  husband,  the  seventh 
Duke. 

She  was  left  a  widow  February  7,  1750,  and  died  at 
Percy  Lodge,  Colnbrook,  July  7,  1754. 

She  wrote  the  verses  signed  "  Eusebia  "  in  Dr.  Watts's 
'  Miscellanies,'  the  letters  signed  "  Cleora  "  in  Mrs.  Rowe's 
Works,  and  a  set  of  verses  to  Mrs.  Howe's  memory,  signed 
"A  Friend."  Her  correspondence  with  the  Countess  of 
Pomfret  was  edited  by  W.  Bingley. 

The  following  piece  of  poetry  is  a  fair  specimen  of  her 
style. 


LITKKAKY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLANO.  I!»l 


THE  DYING  CHRISTIAN'S  HOPE. 

"  When  faint  and  sinking  to  the  shades  of  death, 
I  gasp  with  pain  for  every  labouring  breath, 
Oh,  may  my  soul,  by  some  blest  foretaste  know 
That  she  's  delivered  from  eternal  woe  ! 
May  hope  in  Christ  dispel  each  gloomy  fear, 
And  thoughts  like  these  my  drooping  spirits  cheer  : 
What  though  my  sins  are  of  a  crimson  stain, 
My  Saviour's  blood  can  wash  me  white  again  ; 
Though  numerous  as  the  twinkling  stars  they  be, 
Or  sands  along  the  margin  of  the  sea ; 
Or  as  smooth  pebbles  on  some  beachy  shore, 
The  mercies  of  the  Almighty  still  are  more  ; 
He  looks  upon  my  soul  with  pitying  eyes, 
Sees  all  my  fears,  and  listens  to  my  cries ; 
He  knows  the  frailty  of  each  human  breast, 
What  passions  our  unguarded  hearts  molest, 
And  for  the  sake  of  his  dear,  dying  Son, 
Will  pardon  all  the  ills  that  I  have  done  ! 
Armed  with  so  bright  a  hope,  I  shall  not  fear 
To  see  my  death  hourly  approach  more  near, 
But,  my  faith  strengthening  as  my  life  decays, 
My  dying  breath  shall  mount  to  Heaven  in  praise." 

Her  praises  have  been  sung  by  many  admiring  and 
grateful  poets :  by  none  more  sweetly  than  by  the  Bard  of 
the  Seasons. 

"  Come,  gentle  Spring,  ethereal  mildness  come, 
And  from  the  bosom  of  yon  dropping  cloud, 
While  music  wakes  around,  veiled  in  a  shower 
Of  shadowing  roses,  on  our  plains  descend. 
Oh  !  Hertford,  fitted  or  to  shine  in  courts 
With  unaffected  grace,  or  walk  the  plain 
With  innocence  and  meditation  joined 
In  soft  assemblage,  listen  to  my  song, 
Which  thy  own  season  paints  ;  when  Nature  all 
Is  blooming  and  benevolent  like  thee."* 

ELIZABETH  TOLLET. 

Elizabeth,  was  the  daughter  and  only  child  of  George 

Toilet,  Esq.,  a  Commissioner  of  the  Royal  Navy,  who,  in 

right  of  his  office,  had  a  residence  in  the  Tower  of  London. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  a  friend  of  Mr.  Toilet's,  and  en- 

*  Commencement  of  Thomson's  '  Spring.' 


192  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

couraged  the  literary  tendencies  of  his  daughter.  Nichols's 
'  Collection/  vol.  vi.,  pp.  64-81,  contains  eight  poetical 
pieces  of  hers ;  and  'to  the  same  source  we  are  indebted  for 
the  few  particulars  of  her  history  which  are  here  recorded. 
She  appears  to  have  led  a  tranquil  and  happy  life,  unvaried 
by  any  extraordinary  incidents,  and  exempt  from  great 
afflictions.  She  inherited  a  competent  fortune  at  her 
father's  death,  and  died  in  1754.  All  her  writings  advo- 
cated the  cause  of  "  Good  manners,  Virtue,  and  Eeligion." 
Her  Latin  verses  have  been  highly  praised  by  the  annota- 
tor  "  D."  in  Nichols's  <  Collection.' 

None  of  her  compositions  were  published  until  after  her 
decease.  Her  English  verses  are  distinguished  by  correct 
metre,  sound  sense,  and  extensive  knowledge ;  though 
utterly  void  of  imagination  and  scarcely  irradiated  even 
by  a  gleam  of  fancy.  Some  insight  of  her  intellectual 
pursuits  may  be  gained  from  the  titles  of  her  productions  : 

1.  '  To  Mr.  Congreve  on  his  Plays  and  Poems.'     Here 
is  the  usual  youthful  love  for  poetry  and  the  drama,  eva- 
porating in  commonplace  imitations  of  enthusiasm. 

2.  *  The  Praise  of  Astronomy,'  from  Ovid's  '  Fasti,'  book  i. 
Classical  learning  and  scientific  information  have  stimu- 
lated these  verses.    Miss  Toilet  was  a  good  mathematician. 

3.  '  The  Triumvirate  of  Poets.'     A  vain  attempt  to  rival 
and  surpass  the  vigorous  lines  of  Dryden, — 

"Three  poets  in  three  distant  ages  born,"  &c. 

4.  *  On    Shakespeare's  Monument,' — Unworthy   of  the 
feeling  which  prompted  it. 

5.  *  On  the  Death  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.     Written  on  the 
Night  of  his  Funeral,  March  28, 1727.'    Here  she  has  done 
her  very  best  to  honour  one  whom  she  revered  and  loved, 
but  only  proved  that  she  possessed  a  warm   heart,  well 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  193 

disciplined  feelings,  a  cultivated  mind,  and  a  poetic  faculty 

unequal  to  her  theme. 

6.  '  The  Microcosm'  indicates  the  comprehensive  powers 

of  her  sound  understanding  and  mathematical  mind. 
The  8th  is  entitled  '  In  Parmam  Woodwardianam.' 
The  7th,  being  one  of  the  best  and  shortest,  is  annexed. 

The  subject  is  that  of  Wordsworth's  most  celebrated  sonnet. 

Her  memory,  well  stored  with  historic  facts,  wanted  the 

aid  of  vital  energy  to  set  them  fortli  to  proper  advantage. 

ON  THE  PROSPECT  FROM  WESTMINSTER  BRIDGE -1750. 

"  Caesar,  renowned  in  science  and  in  war, 
Look  down  awhile  from  thy  maternal  star  ; 
See  to  the  skies  what  sacred  domes  ascend, 
What  ample  arches  o'er  the  river  bend  ; 
What  seats  above  in  rural  prospect  lie, 
Beneath,  a  street  that  intercepts  the  eye  ; 
Where  happy  commerce  glads  the  wealthy  streams, 
And  floating  castles  ride.     Is  this  the  Thames  ? 
The  scene  where  brave  Cassibelan  of  yore 
Kepulsed  thy  legions  on  a  savage  shore. 
Britain,  't  is  true,  was  hard  to  overcome, 
Or  by  the  arms,  or  by  the  arts  of  Home, 
Yet  we  allowed  thee  ruler  of  the  sphere, 
But,  last  of  all,  resign  thy  Julian  year." 

These  literary  remains  sufficiently  prove  that  Elizabeth 
Toilet  was  a  woman  of  rare  capacity  and  great  attainments. 
She  understood  the  art  of  constructing  poetry,  although 
she  did  not  possess  the  vitalizing  spark  of  genius.  Strength 
of  character  and  independence  of  principle  are  manifested 
by  the  fact  that  her  verses  are  altogether  pure  and  un- 
spotted by  the  bad  moral  atmosphere  of  her  time.  These 
valuable  qualities  must  have  conduced  to  social  usefulness, 
and  added  dignity  to  her  blameless  and  unostentatious 
character,  while, — 

"  Along  the  cool  sequestered  vale  of  life 
She  kept  the  noiseless  tenor  of  //«•/•  way.' 

O 


194  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Miss  PENNINGTON. 

In  Nichols's  *  Collection  of  Poems,'  vol.  vi.,  p.  27,  may 
be  found,  in  a  note,  some  brief  particulars  of  this  young 
authoress.  Her  father  was  a  clergyman  and  rector  of 
Huntingdon.  She  died  in  the  year  1759,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-five.  Duncoinbe  has  eulogized  her  in  his  '  Femi- 
nead '  for  her  '  Copper  Farthing,'  which  was  published  in 
Billy's  Depository'  for  1777,  vol.  i.,  p.  131. 

Her  '  Ode  to  a  Thrush '  is  in  Dodsley's  '  Collection.'  Her 
'Ode  to  Morning,'  'Hail  roseate  Morn,'  &c.,  and  her 
'  Kiddle,'  ( Aurora,  clad  in  rosy  vest/  &c.  are  in  Nichols's 
<  Collection,'  vol.  vi.,  p.  59,  &c.  1780.  Only  the  two  last 
have  been  seen,  by  the  present  commentator,  for  they  afford 
sufficient  reason  to  believe  that  the  others  are  not  worth 
looking  for.  Her  merits  are  wholly  negative,  consisting  in 
irreproachable  versification  and  inoffensive  insipidity. 

Miss  FARRER. 

The  '  Censura  Literaria,'  vol.  iv.,  p.  194,  mentions  this 
young  lady  as  a  neighbour  and  contemporary  of  Miss 
Pennington's,  and  inserts  her  'Ode  to  Cynthia;'  which 
deserves  commendation  for  facility  and  sprightliness.  Mr. 
Edwards,  in  Richardson's  Correspondence,  eulogizes  her 
charming  '  Ode  on  the  Spring.'  Its  charms  unfortunately 
are  not  perennial. 

ANNE  VISCOUNTESS  IRWIN. 

Anne,  daughter  of  Charles  Howard,  third  Earl  of 
Carlisle,  and  wife,  first  of  Kichard  Viscount  Irwin,  and 
afterwards  of  Colonel  Douglas ;  is  mentioned  in  the  fifth 
volume  of  Park's  edition  of  Walpole's  '  Catalogue  of  Royal 
and  Noble  Authors,'  p.  155.  She  wrote  '  A  Character  of 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  190 

the  Princess  Elizabeth/  a  sister  of  King  George  III.,  who 
diVd  December  28,  1758  ;  '  An  Answer  to  some  Verses  of 
Lady  M.  W.  Montagu's/  and  '  A  Poetical  Epistle  on  Mr. 
Pope's  Character  of  Women/  The  latter  poem  is  given 
there,  but  does  not  deserve  reprinting.  Lady  Irwin  died 
in  the  year  1760. 

ANNE  COUNTESS  TEMPLE. 

Anne,  daughter  and  coheir  of  Thomas  Chambers,  Esq., 
married,  in  the  year  1737,  Kichard,  first  Earl  Temple,  and 
died  April  8,  1777.  Her  collected  Poems  were  printed  by 
Horace  Walpole  at  Strawberry  Hill,  in  1764.  Among  them 
are  several  fables,  one,  *  The  City  and  Country  Mouse/ 
upon  a  subject  which,  at  least  twice  before,  had  been  so 
successfully  treated  by  English  poets  that  feebler  aspirants 
should  have  forborne  to  touch  it.  Robert  Henryson,  a 
poet  of  the  fifteenth  century,  treated  it  with  admirable 
humour,  and  drew  from  it  a  moral  of  contentment  with 
small  possessions.  Matthew  Prior  and  Charles  Montagu, 
Earl  of  Halifax,  in  concert,  made  use  of  it  in  ridicule  of 
Dryden's  '  Hind  and  Panther/  in  their  joint  poem  of  the 
same  title  published  in  1687. 

ANNA  WILLIAMS. 

Anna  Williams  was  born  in  the  year  1706 :  she  was  a 
native  of  South  Wales,  but  even  the  Dictionary  of  '  Enwo- 
gian  Cymru/  which  records  her  name,  does  not  mention  in 
what  county  or  locality.  Her  father,  Zachariah  Williams, 
was  a  member  of  the  medical  profession,  who  greatly  de- 
lighted in  mathematical  pursuits.  Allured  by  the  public 
offer  of  a  large  "  parliamentary  reward  "  for  the  discovery 
of  an  improved  method  of  ascertaining  the  longitude,  he 
left  his  home,  his  family,  and  professional  connections,  and 

o  2 


196  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

bringing  with  him  a  treatise  on  the  subject,  and  an  inge- 
nious instrument  invented  by  himself,  came  up  to  London 
in  the  year  1730.  On  laying  his  discoveries  before  the 
Commissioners,  they  were  rejected  as  practically  useless. 
Being  consequently  reduced  to  poverty,  he  was,  in  con- 
sideration of  the  sacrifices  which  he  had  made  to  the  cause 
of  scientific  research,  admitted  as  a  pensioner  at  the 
Charter  House.  It  does  not  appear  at  what  time,  or  by 
what  means  Zachariah  Williams  first  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson.  Anna  Williams,  being  left 
in  Wales,  had  diligently  carried  on  the  work  of  self-culture, 
acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  French  and  Italian  languages 
and  of  English  literature.  She  suffered  from  the  forma- 
tion of  cataracts  in  both  eyes,  and  on  her  occasional  visits 
to  the  metropolis  to  consult  the  most  skilful  oculist  of  the 
day,  was  received  by  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Johnson  and  treated 
with  the  kindest  hospitality.  She  excelled  in  needlework, 
both  before  and  after  her  total  loss  of  sight,  and  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  she  used  it  as  a  means  of  subsistence. 
In  1746,  probably  incited  by  Dr.  Johnson,  and  certainly 
assisted  by  some  female  friends  in  the  manual  part  of  the 
labour,  Anna  Williams  translated  the  Life  of  the  Emperor 
Julian  from  the  French  of  La  Bletrie. 

In  1749,  her  father,  Zachariah  Williams,  at  the  age  of 
seventy-five,  suffered  expulsion  from  the  Charter  House  for 
some  infringement  of  its  regulations.  Having  remon- 
strated in  vain  against  this  alleged  injustice,  he  published 
in  the  same  year  a  statement  of  his  case,  and  an  appeal  to 
public  opinion,  which,  unhappily  for  him,  had  not  in  those 
days  such  active  promulgates  and  effectual  enforcers  as  it 
now  possesses. 

In  1752,  Dr.  Johnson  lost  his  wife,  but  Anna  Williams 
coming  up  to  London  in  the  following  year  to  be  couched 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  197 

for  cataract,  he  nevertheless  received  her  as  before.  The 
operation  failed,  and  she  became  blind  for  life,  yet  Dr. 
Johnson's  compassionate  friendship  gave  the  desolate  wo- 
man a  home,  and  secured  for  her  the  respectful  attentions 
of  all  those  persons  who  most  loved  and  honoured  him. 

In  1755,  Zachariah  Williams  published  a  book  in  English 
and  Italian,  entitled  *  An  Account  of  an  Attempt  to  Ascer- 
tain the  Longitude  at  Sea  by  an  Exact  Theory  of  the 
Magnetic  Needle.'  This  was  supposed  to  have  been 
written  by  Dr.  Johnson,  and  translated  by  Baretti.  The 
Doctor  placed  a  copy  of  the  work  in  the  Bodleian  Library 
at  Oxford,  and  entered  it  upon  the  catalogue  with  his  own 
hand. 

Zachariah  Williams  died  on  the  12th  of  July,  in  the 
same  year,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two.  He  was  one  of  the 
few  mathematicians  produced  by  the  Principality  of  Wales 
— a  land  of  orators,  poets,  and  musicians.  Dr.  Johnson 
described  him  as  "  A  man  of  industry  indefatigable,  of 
conversation  inoffensive,  patient  of  adversity  and  disease, 
eminently  sober,  temperate,  and  pious ;  worthy  to  have 
ended  life  with  better  fortune."  *  In  the  same  eventful 
year,  1755,  Mr.  Garrick  gave  Anna  Williams  a  benefit  at 
his  theatre,  which  produced  a  clear  profit  of  200£. 

In  1758,  when  Dr.  Johnson  gave  up  his  house  in 
Gough-square,  and  went  to  Gray's  Inn,  Anna  went  into 
lodgings  in  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street,  where  he,  every  night, 
took  tea  with  her  before  he  went  home.  To  those  quiet 
tea-drinkings  special  favourites  were  occasionally  allowed 
to  accompany  the  Doctor.  One  night  Boswell,  before  he 
was  admitted  to  this  privilege,  describes  Goldsmith  as 
"  strutting  away,  and  calling  to  me  with  an  air  of 
superiority  like  that  of  an  esoteric  over  an  exoteric 

*  Boswell'B  *  Life  of  Johnson.' 


198  LITEKARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

disciple  of  a  sage  of  antiquity,  *  I  go  to  Miss  Wil- 
liams ! ' '  When  Dr.  Johnson  again  took  a  house,  she 
had  an  apartment  in  it,  and  continued  there  as  long  as 
she  lived. 

In  1766,  she  published  by  subscription  a  volume,  entitled 
4  Miscellanies  in  Prose  and  Verse,'  which  brought  her  in  as 
clear  profit  the  sum  of  300?.  Boswell  terms  her  "  a  woman 
of  more  than  ordinary  talents  and  literature  ; "  and  relates 
that  Dr.  Johnson  used  to  take  her  with  him  to  dine  at  the 
houses  of  his  friends,  and  would  refuse  their  invitations  if 
she  preferred  his  remaining  at  home  to  dine  with  her 
alone. 

Anna  Williams  was  a  woman  of  plain  appearance  and 
irritable  temper,  with  a  good  understanding  and  benevolent 
heart.  "  Retaining  her  faculties  to  the  very  last,"  she 
died,  as  her  best  earthly  friend  has  recorded,  "  from  mere 
inanition,"  at  his  house  in  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street,  Sep- 
tember 6,  1783,  aged  seventy-seven.  He  said  of  her, 
"  She  acted  with  prudence,  and  she  bore  with  fortitude. 
She  has  left  me  ! 

'  Thou  thy  weary  task  hast  done, 
Home  art  gone,  and  ta'en  thy  wages.' 

Had  she  had  good  humour  and  prompt  elocution,  her 
universal  curiosity  and  comprehensive  knowledge  would 
have  made  her  the  delight  of  all  that  knew  her."  * 

The  welfare  of  her  fellow-creatures  was  her  predominant 
desire,  and  she  ever  delighted  in  furthering  every  plan 
which  proposed  so  good  an  end ;  bequeathing  at  last  all 
the  little  property  she  possessed  to  the  Institution  for 
Deserted  Females,  in  the  parish  of  St.  Sepulchre's,  London. 
Her  verses  are  superficial  and  sentimental.  Among  the 
best  are  those — 

*  Boswell's  '  Life  of  Johnson.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  199 

'  >s  A  LADY  SINGING. 

"  When  Delia  strikes  the  trembling  string, 

She  charms  our  listening  ears  ; 
But  when  she  joins  her  voice  to  sing 
She  emulates  the  spheres. 

The  feathered  songsters  round  her  throng, 

And  catch  the  soothing  notes  ; 
To  imitate  her  matchless  song 

They  strain  their  little  throats. 

The  constant,  mournful,  cooing  doves, 

Attentive  to  her  strain, 
All  mindful  of  their  tender  loves, 

By  listening  soothe  their  pain. 

Soft  were  the  notes  by  Orpheus  played, 

Which  once  recalled  his  bride, 
But  had  he  sung  like  thee,  fair  maid, 

The  nymph  had  scarcely  died." 

It  may  commonly  be  depended  on  as  a  test  of  true  or 
false  taste  and  feeling  for  music,  that  real  appreciation 
seldom  adopts  an  imperceptible  and  unrealized  object  of 
comparison.  That  Delia  "  emulates  the  spheres  "  is  in- 
deed mere  negative  praise;  that  her  voice  had  more 
charms  than  the  lyre  of  Orpheus,  may  be  taken  as  a 
general  preference  of  vocal  to  instrumental  music ;  but 
the  birds  attempting  to  imitate  her  song,  and  the  doves 
more  especially  represented  as  soothed  by  it,  is  a  better 
thought,  and  was  probably  suggested  by  the  presence  of 
exhilarated  canaries  and  tame  turtles  in  captivity. 

LADY  O'NiEL. 

Henrietta,  only  daughter  of  Charles  Boyle  Viscount 
Dungarvon,  eldest  son  of  John,  fifth  Earl  of  Cork,  was 
born  in  the  year  1758.  On  the  15th  October,  1777,  she 
married  John  O'Niel,  Esq.,  who  was,  in  1793,  created 
Baron  O'Niel.  The  account  of  her  life  in  Park's  *  Walpole ' 
is  more  than  commonly  meagre,  and  the  date  of  her 
decease  is  not  given  eithor  there  or  in  any  of  the  Peerages 


200         LITERAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

where  it  has  been  sought.  It  appears  from  Charlotte 
Smith's  verses  to  her  memory,  that  she  died  in  1794.  Her 
friendship  for  that  sweet  poetess  has  been  the  means  of 
preserving  two  elegant  though  morbid  little  pieces  of  her 

own. 

ODE — To  THE  POPPY. 

"  Not  for  the  promise  of  the  labour'd  field, 
,  Not  for  the  good  the  yellow  harvests  yield, 

I  bend  at  Ceres'  shrine ; 
For  dull,  to  human  eyes,  appear 
The  golden  glories  of  the  year, 

Alas  !  a  melancholy  worship's  mine. 
I  hail  the  goddess  for  her  scarlet  flower ; 
Thou  brilliant  weed, 
That  does  so  far  exceed 
The  richest  gifts  gay  Flora  can  bestow  ; 
Heedless  I  pass'd  thee,  in  life's  morning  hour, 

(Thou  comforter  of  woe) 
Till  sorrow  taught  me  to  confess  thy  power. 
In  early  days,  when  Fancy  cheats, 
A  varied  wreath  I  wove, 
Of  laughing  Spring's  luxuriant  sweets, 

To  deck  ungrateful  Love  : 
The  rose,  or  thorn,  my  labours  crown'd  ; 
As  Venus  smiled,  or  Venus  frown'd  ; 
But  Love  and  Joy,  and  all  their  train,  are  flown  ; 

Even  languid  Hope  no  more  is  mine, 
And  I  will  sing  of  thee  alone, 
Unless,  perchance,  the  attributes  of  Grief, 
The  cypress  bud,  and  willow  leaf, 

Their  pale  funereal  foliage  blend  with  thine. 

Hail,  lovely  blossom  ! — thou  canst  ease 

The  wretched  victims  of  disease  ; 

Canst  close  those  weary  eyes  in  gentle  sleep, 

Which  never  open  but  to  weep  ; 

For,  oh  !  thy  potent  charm 

Can  agonizing  pain  disarm  ; 

Expel  imperious  Memory  from  her  seat, 

And  bid  the  throbbing  heart  forget  to  beat. 

Soul-soothing  plant !  that  can  such  blessings  give, 

By  thee  the  mourner  bears  to  live  ; 

By  thee  the  hopeless  die  ! 
Oh !  ever  '  friendly  to  despair,' 
Might  sorrow's  pallid  votary  dare, 
Without  a  crime,  that  remedy  implore, 

Which  bids  the  spirit  from  its  bondage  fly, 
I'd  court  thy  palliative  aid  no  more  ; 


UTKKAKY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  201 

No  more  I'd  sue  tlmt  thou  slumldVt  spread, 
Thy  spell  annual  hiy  aching  In -ad, 
But  would  eonjure  thee  tu  impart 
Thy  1  Miami  lor  a  brok<  n  lu-art  ; 
And  by  thy  soft  Lethean  power. 

(Inestimable  flower) 
Burst  these  terrestrial  bonds,  and  other  regions  try." 


WRITTEN  BY  THE  SAME  LADY  ON  SEEING  HER  Two  SONS  AT  PLAY. 

"  Sweet  age  of  bless'd  delusion !  blooming  boys, 
Ah!  revel  long  in  childhood's  thoughtless  joys, 
With  light  and  pliant  spirits,  that  can  stoop 
To  follow,  sportively,  the  rolling  hoop  ; 
To  watch  «the  sleeping  top  with  gay  delight, 
Or  mark,  with  raptured  gaze,  the  sailing  kite  ; 
Or,  eagerly  pursuing  pleasure's  call, 
Can  find  it  center'd  in  the  bounding  ball. 
Alas !  the  day  will  come,  when  sports  like  these 
Must  lose  their  magic,  and  their  power  to  please  ; 
Too  swiftly  fled,  the  rosy  hours  of  youth 
Shall  yield  their  fairy  charms  to  mournful  truth  ; 
Even  now,  a  mother's  fond  prophetic  fear 
Sees  the  dark  train  of  human  ills  appear  ; 
Views  various  fortune  for  each  lovely  child, 
Storms  for  the  bold,  and  anguish  for  the  mild  ; 
Beholds  already  those  expressive  eyes 
Beam  a  sad  certainty  of  future  sighs  ; 
And  dreads  each  suffering  those  dear  breasts  may  know, 
In  their  long  passage  through  a  world  of  woe  ; 
Perchance  predestined  every  pang  to  prove, 
That  treacherous  friends  inflict,  or  faithless  love  ; 
For,  ah  !  how  few  have  found  existence  sweet, 
Where  grief  is  sure,  but  happiness  deceit." 


VERSES  BV  CHARLOTTE  SMITH. 
On  the  death  of  LADY  O'NiEL,  written  in  September,  17'J4. 

"  Like  a  poor  ghost  the  night  I  seek  ; 

Its  hollow  winds  repeat  my  sighs  ; 
The  cold  dews  mingle  on  my  cheek 

With  tears  that  wander  from  mine  eyes. 
The  thorns  that  still  my  couch  molest, 

Have  robb'd  these  heavy  eyes  of  sleep  ; 
But  though  deprived  of  tranquil  rest, 

I  here  at  last  am  free  to  weep. 


202  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Twelve  times  the  moon,  that  rises  red 

O'er  yon  tall  wood  of  shadowy  pine, 
Has  fill'd  her  orb,  since  low  was  laid 

My  Harriet  !  that  sweet  form  of  thine  ! 
While  each  sad  month,  as  slow  it  pass'd, 

Brought  some  new  sorrow  to  deplore ; 
Some  grief  more  poignant  than  the  last, 

But  thou  canst  calm  those  griefs  no  more. 
No  more  thy  friendship  soothes  to  rest 

This  wearied  spirit  tempest-toss 'd  ; 
The  cares  that  weigh  upon  my  breast 

Are  doubly  felt  since  thou  art  lost. 
Bright  visions  of  ideal  grace 

That  the  young  poet's  dreams  inflame, 
Were  not  more  lovely  than  thy  face ; 

Were  not  more  perfect  than  thy  frame. 
Wit,  that  no  sufferings  could  impair, 

Was  thine,  and  thine  those  mental  powers 
Of  force  to  chase  the  fiends  that  tear 

From  Fancy's  hands  her  budding  flowers. 
O'er  what,  my  angel  friend,  thou  wort, 

Dejected  Memory  loves  to  mourn  ; 
Kegretting  still  that  tender  heart, 

Now  withering  in  a  distant  urn. 
But  ere  that  wood  of  shadowy  pine 

Twelve  times  shall  yon  full  orb  behold, 
This  sickening  heart,  that  bleeds  for  thine, 

My  Harriet ! — may  like  thine  be  cold  !  " 

To  the  same  beloved  friend  Charlotte  Smith  had  some 
years  before  addressed  her  37th  sonnet. 

SUSANNA  BLAMIRE. 

Considering  the  Lowland  Scotch  dialect  to  be  merely 
English  in  a  very  behindhand  condition,  the  name  of  Susan 
Blamire  is  here  introduced,  as  belonging  to  a  woman 
capable  of  producing  poetry  in  the  language  of  any  country 
with  which  she  might  have  chanced  to  become  familiar. 
She  was  descended  from  an  old  English  north  country 
family,  and  born  at  her  paternal  home,  Cardew  Hall,  near 
Carlisle,  in  the  year  1747.  Her  first  productions  appear 
to  have  been  some  ballads  in  the  local  dialect  of  her  native 
region* 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  203 

Her  sister  having  married  Colonel  Graham,  of  Duchray, 
Perthshire,  Miss  Blamire  accompanied  them  to  his  home, 
and  resided  there  with  them  for  several  years,  delighting 
herself  with  the  music,  the  legends,  and  the  poetry  of 
Scotland. 

She  died  unmarried,  at  Carlisle,  in  1794.  Her  poems 
were  published  in  1842,  with  a  memoir,  by  Patrick 
Maxwell. 

THE  NABOB. 

"  When  silent  Time,  wi'  lightly  foot, 

Had  trod  on  thirty  years, 
I  sought  ag'ain  my  native  laud, 

Wi'  mony  hopes  and  fears. 
Wha  kens  gin  the  dear  friends  I  left 

May  still  continue  mine  ? 
Or  gin  I  e'er  again  shall  taste 

The  joys  I  left  langsyne  ? 

As  I  drew  near  my  ancient  pile, 

My  heart  beat  a'  the  way, 
Ilk  place  I  passed  seemed  yet  to  speak 

O'  some  dear  former  day  ; 
Those  days  that  followed  me  afar, 

Those  happy  days  o'  mine, 
Whilk  made  me  think  the  present  joys 

A'  nothing  to  langsyne. 

The  ivied  tower  now  met  my  eye, 

Where  minstrels  used  to  blaw ; 
Nae  friend  stepped  forth  wi'  open  hand, 

Nae  weel  kenned  face  I  saw, 
Till  Donald  tottered  to  the  door, 

Wham  I  left  in  his  prime, 
And  grat  to  see  the  lad  return, 

He  bore  about  langsyne. 

I  ran  to  ilka  dear  friend's  room, 

As  if  to  find  them  there, 
I  knew  where  ilk  ane  used  to  sit, 

And  hung  o'er  many  a  chair ; 
Till  soft  remembrance  threw  a  veil 

Across  these  e'en  o'  mine, 
I  closed  the  door,  and  sobbed  aloud, 

To  think  on  auld  langsyne. 

Some  pensy  chiels,  a  new  sprung  race, 

Wad  next  their  welcome  pay, 
\Vha  shuddered  at  my  Gothic  wa's 

And  wished  my  groves  awuy. 


204  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

'  Cut,  cut,1  they  cried,  '  those  aged  elms, 
Lay  low  yon  mournfu'  pine,' 

Na !  na !  our  fathers'  names  grow  there, 
Memorials  o'  langsyne. 

To  wean  me  frae  these  waefu'  thoughts, 

They  took  me  to  the  toun, 
But  sair  on  ilka  weel-kenned  face 

I  missed  the  youthfu'  bloom. 
At  balls  they  pointed  to  a  nymph 

Wham  a'  declared  divine, 
But  sure  her  mother's  blushing  cheeks 

Were  fairer  far  langsyne. 

In  vain  I  sought  in  music's  sound 

To  find  that  magic  art, 
Which  oft  in  Scotland's  ancient  lays 

Has  thrilled  through  a'  my  heart. 
The  sang  had  mony  an  artfu'  turn, 

My  ear  confessed  'twas  fine, 
But  missed  the  simple  melody 

I  listened  to  langsyne. 

Ye  sous  to  comrades  o'  my  youth, 

Forgie  an  auld  man's  spleen, 
Wha  midst  your  gayest  scenes  still  mourns 

The  days  he  ance  has  seen. 
When  time  has  passed  and  seasons  fled, 

Your  hearts  will  feel  like  mine ; 
And  aye  the  sang  will  maist  delight 

That  minds  ye  o'  langsyne." 


MARY  KOBINSON. 

Mary  Darby  was  of  obscure  birth,  and  a  native  of  the 
city  of  Bristol.  When  very  young  she  married  a  Mr. 
Kobinson,  the  illegitimate  son  of  Mr.  Thomas  Harris  of 
Tregunter,  in  the  parish  of  Talgarth,  Breconshire.  To 
the  exquisite  scenery  around  that  lovely  retreat,  and  to 
her  solitary  readings  and  musings  there,  she  attributes  in 
her  memoir  those  graces  of  manner,  and  that  taste  for 
literature  which  subsequently  added  fresh  charms  to  her 
personal  advantages. 

Her  husband  having  brought  her  to  London,  she  went 
upon  the  stage  in  order  to  increase  their  small  income. 
Here  her  extraordinary  beauty  soon  rendered  her  at  once 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  205 

famous  and  infamous  in  the  character  of  Shakspeare's 
•  Perdita.' 

Under  the  signature  of  *  Laura  Maria,'  she  wrote  for  the 
magazines  in  the  style  of  the  Delia  Cruscan  rhymers ; 
she  also  published  the  novel  of  *  Vancenza,'  and  two 
volumes  of  her  collected  poems. 

She  died  in  poverty  at  a  cottage  on  Englefield  Green, 
December  26,  1800,  at  the  age  of  forty.  Her  autobio- 
graphy and  literary  remains  were  afterwards  published  for 
the  benefit  of  her  only  child,  a  daughter.  Her  writings 
are  not  devoid  of  talent  or  of  sentiment.  The  following  is 
a  specimen  of  her  verse  : — 

SONNET  TO  TIME. 

"  Insatiate  Despot !  whose  resistless  arm, 

Shatters  the  loftiest  fabric  from  its  base ; 
And  tears  from  beauty  ev'ry  magic  charm, 
And  robs  proud  nature  of  her  loveliest  grace. 

Still  art  thou  kind,  for  as  thy  pow'r  prevails, 

And  age  comes  onward,  menacing  decay ; 
As  warmth  expires,  and  numbing  frost  assails, 

And  life's  faint  lamp  presents  a  quiv'ring  ray  ; 

'Tis  thine  to  reconcile  the  tranquil  breast, 

To  prove  that  sublunary  joys  are  vain ; 

To  turn  from  pomp,  and  all  its  tinsel  train, 
And  seek  the  silent  paths  of  mental  rest : 
So,  from  the  deadliest  poison  chymic  art, 
Extracts  a  healing  balm  to  tranquillize  the  heart." 


206  LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTEK    XL 

THE  POETESSES. 

A.D.  1800-1806. 

Caroline  Symmons  —  Elizabeth  Carter  —  Charlotte  Smith. 


1  The  Muse  instructed  a  well-nurtured  train 
Of  abler  votaries  to  cleanse  the  stain, 
And  claim  the  palm  for  purity  of  song." 

COWPER'S  '  Table  Talk.' 


CAROLINE  SYMMONS. 

THE  third  volume  of  the  l  Censura  Literaria'  makes 
mention  of  this  promising  young  girl,  who  was  the  daughter 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Symmons,  author  of  a  Life  of  Milton. 
She  died  June  1,  1803,  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  When 
only  twelve  years  old  she  wrote  '  The  Flower  Girl,'  which 
was  first  published  by  Archdeacon  Wrangham  with  his 
poem  of  '  The  Eaising  of  Jairus's  Daughter,'  in  1804,  ac- 
companied by  a  brief  memoir  of  the  authoress.  A  genuine 
talent  for  versification,  and  a  mind  capable  of  realizing 
the  situation  of  others  and  entering  into  their  feelings, 
appear  in  these  verses,  superficial  and  juvenile  as  they 
are : — 

THE  FLOWER  GIRL. 

"  Come  buy  my  wood  harebells,  my  cowslips  come  buy, 

Oh,  take  my  carnations  and  jessamines  sweet, 
Lest  their  beauties  should  wither,  their  perfume  should  die, 
Ah,  snatched  like  myself  from  their  native  retreat. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OP  ENGLAND. 

Oli  ye,  who  in  pleasure  and  luxury  livr. 

Whose  bosoms  would  wink  beneath  half  ray  sod  woes, 
Ah,  deign  to  my  ery  a  kind  answer  to  giv.-. 

And  shed  a  soft  tear  for  the  fate  of  poor  Rose. 
Yet  once  were  my  days  happy,  sweet,  and  seivur, 

And  once  have  I  tasted  the  balm  of  repose  ; 
But  now  on  my  cheek  meagre  famine  is  seen, 

And  anguish  prevails  in  the  bosom  of  Rose. 
Then  buy  my  wood  harebells,  my  cowslips  come  buy, 

Oh,  take  my  carnations  and  jessamines  sweet, 
Lest  their  beauties  should  wither,  their  perfume  should  die. 

Ah,  snatched  like  myself  from  their  native  retreat." 

ELIZABETH  CARTER. 

No  woman  was  ever  placed,  from  first  to  last,  in  circum- 
stances more  favourable  to  the  calm  and  easy  gratification 
of  literary  tendencies,  more  beloved  and  honoured  for  her 
mental  acquirements  and  moral  qualities,  or  more  amply 
and  gratuitously  rewarded  for  the  social  benefits  which  she 
conferred,  than  Elizabeth  Carter.  Her  father  was  the  Rev. 
Nicholas  Carter,  D.D.,  perpetual  curate  of  Deal.  Her 
mother,  his  first  wife,  was  the  only  daughter  of  Richard 
Svvayne,  Esq.,  of  Bere,  in  Dorsetshire.  She  was  their 
eldest  daughter,  and  born  at  Deal,  Dec.  16,  1717. 

Dr.  Carter  himself  undertook  the  labour  of  educating 
his  numerous  children,  imparting  to  boys  and  girls  alike 
instructions  in  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages.  The  mind 
of  his  eldest  daughter  was  so  dull  and  slow  of  apprehen- 
sion, that  he  almost  despaired  of  ever  making  her  a 
scholar,  and  would  have  given  up  the  attempt  if  her  re- 
solute and  indefatigable  perseverance  as  a  child  had  not 
struggled  incessantly  against  all  obstacles.  To  be  good 
and  to  be  learned  were  the  earliest  objects  of  her  ambition, 
and  with  unabated  energy  she  steadfastly  pursued  them 
through  life.  She  could  never  acquire  grammar  as  a 
rudimentary  theory,  but  after  having  attained  great  pro- 
ficiency in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  she  deduced 


208  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

their  principles  of  composition  from  their  literature.  She 
also  studied  Hebrew  with  great  success.  In  order  to  assist 
the  acquirement  of  French,  her  father  sent  her  to  board 
for  a  year  in  the  family  of  M.  Le  Seur,  a  refugee  minister 
at  Canterbury,  where  she  learned  both  to  understand  and 
to  speak  it  with  facility.  She  subsequently  applied  her- 
self to  Italian,  Spanish,  German,  and  Portuguese,  and  very 
late  in  life  she  learned  enough  of  Arabic  to  read  it  without 
a  dictionary. 

Being  naturally  heavy,  and  resolved  to  reclaim  time 
from  sleep  for  the  prosecution  of  her  studies,  she  had  re- 
course to  snuff,  and  was  never  able  to  break  herself  of  the 
habit  of  taking  it.  Over  application,  and  the  abridgment 
of  the  measure  of  rest  required  by  her  constitution,  brought 
on  intense  headaches,  to  which  she  remained  subject 
through  life.  Time  and  practical  use  gave  brightness  and 
power  to  her  faculties ;  she  had  naturally  a  sound  under- 
standing, and  her  taste  for  literature  was  formed  upon  the 
finest  models,  while  an  early  introduction  to  the  best 
society  added  the  suavities  and  refinements  of  manner  and 
habits,  to  which  her  gentle  and  delicate  character  spon- 
taneously inclined. 

Her  earliest  attempts  at  literary  composition  were  in 
verse.  Dr.  Carter  was  well  acquainted  with  Mr.  Cave, 
the  publisher ;  in  whose  fourth  volume  of  '  The  Gentle- 
man's Magazine,'  she  published  several  pieces,  under  the 
signature  of  "  Eliza,"  when  she  was  only  sixteen  years  of 
age.  Visiting  London  occasionally  with  her  father,  she 
was  introduced  by  Mr.  Cave  to  many  literary  persons,  and 
among  the  rest  to  Dr.  Johnson,  soon  after  his  first  settling 
down  there  in  the  year  1737.  In  1738  she  published  -an 
anonymous  collection  of  her  poems,  including  those  which 
had  been  previously  printed  in  '  The  Gentleman's  Maga- 


LITEKARY   WOMEN   OP    ENGLAND.  209 

zine.'  In  1739,  she  translated  and  published,  with  notes, 
tlio  criticism  of  Crousaz  on  Pope's  *  Essay  on  Man,'  and 
A  lirarotti's  '  Explanation  of  Newton's  Philosophy.' 

It  is  always  interesting  to  observe  the  communication 
of  the  sacred  fires  of  poetry  and  of  piety.  At  the  torch  of 
Elizabeth  Rowe,  the  young  Elizabeth  Carter  enkindled 
hers.  In  the  lines  on  Philomela's  death,  she  says  — 

"  Fixed  on  my  soul  shall  thy  example  grow, 
And  be  my  genius  and  my  guide  below." 

The  amiable  Countess  of  Hertford,  true  to  her  beloved 
friend  Mrs.  Rowe,  in  death  as  well  as  in  life,  rewarded  the 
young  aspirant's  eulog^  with  her  friendship  and  correspond- 
ence. Elizabeth  Carter's  difficulties  were  all  confined  to 
her  books  of  private  study ;  she  met  with  no  discourage- 
ments from  the  outer  world. 

Matthew  Robinson,  Esq.,  of  Rokeby,  had  married  the 
heiress  of  the  Drakes  of  Horton,  near  Hythe ;  and  their 
eldest  daughter  Elizabeth,  born  in  1720,  who  spent  a  great 
part  of  her  childhood  there,  was  early  attracted  by  sym- 
pathy of  feeling  and  similarity  of  pursuits  towards  her 
young  contemporary  and  neighbour,  Elizabeth  Carter.  A 
close  friendship  was  formed  between  them,  which  lasted  to 
the  end  of  their  long  lives.  In  the  year  1742,  Elizabeth 
Robinson  married  Edward  Montagu,  Esq.,  a  grandson  of 
the  second  Earl  of  Sandwich;  and  subsequently  to  that 
event,  Elizabeth  Carter  often  visited  Mrs.  Montagu  at  her 
country  seat  at  Sandleford  and  at  her  house  in  London,  the 
celebrated  resort  of  persons  of  the  highest  rank  and  most 
conspicuous  talents. 

Her  translations  were  approved,  her  verses  were  ap- 
plauded by  Burke,  Dr.  Johnson,  Savage,  and  Baratier ;  and 
she  found  her  society  courted  by  many  whom  the  world 
deemed  it  an  honour  to  know. 


210  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

In  1741  began  her  intimacy  with  Catherine  Talbot, 
which  became  a  mutual  blessing,  for  they  cherished  each 
other's  faculties,  virtues,  and  piety.  Through  Miss  Talbot 
and  her  mother  she  made  the  acquaintance  of  Dr.  Seeker, 
with  whom  they  resided.  He  was  then  Bishop  of  Oxford, 
and  was  raised,  in  1758,  to  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury. 

Early  in  the  year  1749,  she  commenced  her  translation 
of  Epictetus,  which  she  submitted  sheet  by  sheet  to  Dr. 
Seeker's  revisal.  She  finished  the  Disquisitions  in  Decem- 
ber, 1752,  but  at  his  suggestion  added  the  Enchiridion  and 
Fragments,  with  an  introduction  and  notes;  and  a  sub- 
scription having  been  got  up  by  him  and  her  other  wealthy 
and  influential  friends,  the  work  was  published  in  1758, 
and  brought  her  in  a  clear  profit  of  1000Z.  This  transla- 
tion has  passed  through  three  editions,  and  still  maintains 
a  high  reputation  in  our  standard  literature.  While  occu- 
pied in  preparing  the  first  edition  for  the  press,  Miss 
Carter  was  fulfilling  the  still  more  onerous  task  of  pre- 
paring her  youngest  brother  for  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge. Her  pupil  did  her  credit,  for  he  entered  Bennet 
College  in  1756,  passed  through  his  course  of  study  with 
distinction,  and  finally  became  incumbent  of  Little  Wit- 
tenham,  Berkshire. 

No  one  ever  learned,  from  more  pleasing  experience, 
the  truth  embodied  in  Madame  de  Stael's  aphorism : — 
"  Quand  le  talent  litteraire  peut  inspirer  a  ceux  qui  ne 
nous  connaissent  point  encore,  du  penchant  a  nous  aimer, 
c'est  le  present  du  ciel  dont  on  recueille  les  plus  doux 
fruits  sur  la  terre."  * 

The  equability  of  her  mind  was  maintained  by  well- 

*  When  literary  talent  inspires  those  to  whom  we  are  as  yet  unknown 
with  an  inclination  to  love  us,  then  is  it  the  gift  of  heaven,  from  which  we 
gather  the  sweetest  of  all  earthly  fruits. — '  L'Allemagne,'  vol.  ii.,  chap.  xxx. 


IlTF.KMtY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAM'  'J 1  1 

Balanced  acquisitions.  She  carefully  studied  astronomy, 
and  the  geography  of  ancient  history.  Her  nephew  and 
biographer  informs  us  "that  she  was  literally  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  meanderings  of  the  Peneus  and  the 
course  of  the  Illissus,  than  she  was  with  those  of  the 
Thames  or  Loire  ;  and  could  give  a  better  account  of  the 
wanderings  of  Ulysses  and  ^neas,  than  she  could  of  the 
voyages  and  discoveries  of  Cook  or  Bougainville."  She 
learned  to  play  upon  the  spinnet  and  upon  the  German 
flute,  was  particularly  fond  of  dancing  in  her  youth,  and 
of  a  rubber  at  whist  ajl  her  life  long.  She  drew  tolerably 
well,  made  herself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  every 
department  of  household  economy,  delighted  greatly  in 
gardening,  and  more  especially  in  the  culture  of  flowers, 
and  constantly  occupied  her  leisure  or  social  hours  with 
plain  needle-work.  With  the  hope  of  counteracting  the 
bad  effects  of  over-study,  she  habituated  herself  to  taking 
very  long  walks,  and  indulged  in  attendance  upon  social 
parties.  Her  placid  and  cheerful  benevolence  won  the 
aifection  both  of  old  and  young,  although  increasing  deaf- 
ness, as  age  drew  on,  reduced  general  conversation,  for 
her,  to  the  mere  passive  spectatorship  of  the  gesticulations 
in  a  pantomime.  She  never  married,  and  adopted  the 
matronly  designation  of  Mrs.,  after  the  manner  of  a  pre- 
ceding generation. 

Her  father  having  lost  his  second  wife,  and  his  other 
children  being  all  settled  in  homes  of  their  own,  Mrs. 
Carter  bought  a  house  at  Deal,  in  the  year  1762,  to  which 
the  venerable  old  man  removed  as  a  harbour  of  rest.  She 
managed  the  household,  and  provided  in  the  most  minute 
particulars  for  his  hourly  comfort.  They  had  their  sepa- 
rate libraries,  and  spent  their  studious  hours  apart,  meeting 
cheerfully  at  meals,  and  spending  their  evenings  together 

p  2 


212  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

during  periods  of  six  months.  The  other  half  of  the  year 
she  usually  passed  in  London,  or  in  visiting  her  friends  at 
their  country  houses. 

At  the  suggestion  of  the  Earl  of  Bath  (Pulteney),  who 
took  great  delight  in  her  conversation  and  writings,  Mrs. 
Carter  published  another  volume  of  poems  in  1762,  to 
which  "  the  good  Lord  Lyttleton  "  (then  Sir  George)  con- 
tributed a  poetical  introduction. 

In  1763,  she  accompanied  the  Earl  of  Bath  and  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Montagu  on  a  continental  tour.  They  crossed  the 
Channel  to  Calais,  visited  the  Spa,  passed  down  the  Rhine, 
and,  travelling  through  Brussels,  Ghent,  Bruges,  and  Dun- 
kirk to  Calais,  re-crossed  to  Dover,  after  an  absence  of 
nearly  four  months.  In  the  summer  of  1764,  Lord  Bath 
died ;  and  as  he  made  no  mention  of  Elizabeth  Carter  in 
his  will,  the  ultimate  heir  to  his  property,  Sir  William 
Johnson  Pulteney,  spontaneously  settled  upon  her  an 
annuity  of  100?.,  which  he  soon  afterwards  augmented  to 
150/.,  urged  only  by  the  promptings  of  his  own  generous 
heart,  and  grateful  consideration  for  the  worthy  friend  who 
had  solaced  his  noble  predecessor's  declining  days. 

In  August,  1768,  she  lost  her  kind  friend  Archbishop 
Seeker,  between  whose  amiable  character  and  her  own 
there  existed  many  points  of  resemblance.  In  November, 

1769,  she  lost  her  attached  friend  Miss  Sutton;  and  in 
the  same  year  experienced  the  severest  trial  of  her  life,  in 
watching  the   progress   of  that   agonizing   and   hopeless 
disease  which  deprived  her  of  Catherine  Talbot,  the  best- 
beloved  of  her  many  dear  ones,  on  the  9th  of  January, 

1770.  Her  own  elegant  pen  has  thus  delineated  this  ac- 
complished and  excellent  woman  : — "  Never,  surely,  was 
there  a  more  perfect  pattern  of  evangelical  goodness,  de- 
corated by  all  the  ornaments  of  a  highly  improved  under- 


I.ITKIJAKY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  'Jl.'J 

standing,  and  recommended  by  a  sweetness  of  temper  and 
an  elegance  of  manners  of  a  peculiar  and  more  engaging 
kind  than  in  any  other  character  I  ever  knew." 

In  the  same  year  that  she  lost  this  dear  friend,  Elizabeth 
Carter  edited  and  published  a  volume  of  Miss  Talbot's 
papers,  under  the  title  of  '  Keflections  on  the  Seven  Days 
of  the  Week ;'  and  subsequently  two  volumes  of  l  Essays 
and  Poems/  These  works  of  Catherine  Talbot  went 
through  seven  editions  in  the  course  of  the  next  five-and- 
twenty  years,  and  were  highly  esteemed  for  the  elevated 
purity  of  their  moral  tone,  and  for  the  gracefulness  of 
their  diction.  There '  is  in  them  sufficient  likeness  to  the 
writings  of  C.  C.  Sturm  to  give  probability  to  the  thought 
that  they  originated  from  thence. 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Carter's  biographer  has  given  to  the 
world  a  liberal  selection  from  her  thirty  years'  corre- 
spondence with  Catherine  Talbot,  and  her  correspondence 
with  Mrs.  Agmondesham  Vesey  between  the  years  1763 
and  1787,  in  two  quarto  volumes.  All  Mrs.  Carters  letters 
are  remarkable  for  correct,  perspicuous,  and  appropriate 
language;  for  soundness  of  judgment,  moderation  of 
spirit,  deep  sincerity,  and  pervading  piety.  Her  cheerful 
placidity  of  disposition  gives  gentle  life  to  all  her  senti- 
ments and  opinions,  but  in  her  occasional  expressions  of 
buoyant  gaiety  there  is  always  something  awkward,  forced, 
and  exaggerated. 

Mrs.  Yesey's  letters  are  those  of  a  good-natured  creature 
who  has  fallen  into  scepticism  because  she  will  try  to 
reason  and  has  faculties  unfitted  for  the  process,  and 
because  she  too  dearly  loves  this  visible  world.  Those  of 
Catherine  Talbot  are  in  every  respect  the  best,  full  of 
natural  vivacity  and  chastened  thought. 

\Yith  the  exception  of  a  few  poems,  one   volume  of 


214  LITERAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

ethical  philosophy  translated  from  the  Greek,  one  of 
carping  criticism  from  the  French,  and  one  of  attenuated 
science  from  the  Italian,  it  is  remarkable  that  all  Elizabeth 
Carter's  accumulated  stores  of  erudition  exhaled  away  in 
conversation  arid  familiar  letters.  This  fact  may  excite 
our  regret  that  her  powers  found  not  wider  exercise  ;  but 
it  must  also  attest  the  genuineness  of  that  love  for  learning 
which  led  her  from  infancy  even  to  extreme  old  age  to 
apply  herself  with  unremitting  labour  to  fresh  studies. 
The  laurels  which  she  won  in  youth  were  those  which 
adorn  her  tomb.  Excepting  the  tribute  to  Miss  Talbot's 
memory,  and  the  re-editing  of  her  own  poems  at  the  call 
of  her  publishers,  she  published  nothing  after  Dr.  Seeker's 
death,  and  never  sought  an  anti-climax  to  her  one  great 
success  in  Epictetus. 

All  Mrs,  Carter's  griefs  were  those  of  deprivation,  and 
in  1774,  inevitable  death  parted  her  from  the  good  and 
venerable  father,  whose  home  she  had  shared  from  her 
birth.  In  the  full  possession  of  all  his  faculties,  excepting 
only  a  slight  deficiency  in  the  sense  of  hearing,  he  passed 
away  in  his  eighty-seventh  year.  A  small  accession  of 
fortune  fell  to  her  at  his  decease. 

In  1775,  Mrs.  Montagu  lost  her  husband,  and  entered 
upon  the  independent  possession  of  a  large  property. 
Among  her  first  acts  of  beneficence  on  this  occasion  was 
her  assignment  to  her  early  friend,  Elizabeth  Carter,  of 
an  annuity  of  100?.  Mrs.  Underwood,  a  family  connection 
of  the  Carters,  afterwards  bequeathed  to  her  an  annuity 
of  407. ;  and  Mrs.  Talbot  dying  in  1783,  left  her  the  sum 
of  200Z.  as  a  legacy. 

Thus,  with  little  labour  for  the  public  and  no  anxiety, 
Elizabeth  Carter  attained  to  literary  fame,  and  found 
herself  possessed,  by  means  which  she  could  never  have 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  215 

anticipated,  of  a  secure  and  ample  income  for  the  supply 
of  all  her  simple  wants  and  moderate  wishes. 

In  1782,  at  the  desire  of  her  kind  friend,  Sir  W.  J. 
Pulteney,  she  accompanied  his  daughter  to  Paris,  but  she 
returned  home  in  sixteen  days,  and  limited  her  after 
journeys  to  British  ground. 

She  was  repeatedly  honoured  at  Deal  with  visits  from 
various  members  of  the  royal  family,  who  did  them- 
selves credit  by  this  homage  paid  to  extraordinary  learning 
and  exemplary  piety.  The  Queen,  who  had  long  been 
accustomed  to  ask  her  opinion  upon  books,  through  ladies 
of  the  court,  at  last,  in  1791,  commanded  her  attendance 
at  Cremorne  House,  where  the  translator  of  Epictetus  was 
formally  presented  and  received  with  the  highest  favour. 

In  1796,  Mrs.  Carter  had  a  dangerous  illness,  from 
which  she  never  thoroughly  recovered.  She  continued, 
however,  to  exert  herself  in  visiting  the  poor,  in  the 
establishment  and  maintenance  of  charitable  institutions, 
and  in  shedding  the  influences  of  her  benevolent  spirit  over 
the  high  circles  of  society  in  which  she  moved. 

In  the  year  1800,  she  lost  by  death  her  faithful  friend 
Mrs.  Montagu,  at  the  age  of  eighty ;  three  years  her  junior. 
Their  correspondence,  from  1755  to  1799,  was  published 
after  Mrs.  Carter's  death  by  her  nephew,  Mr.  Pennington. 

On  the  19th  of  February,  1806,  after  a  long  period  of 
gradually  increasing  weakness,  the  gentle,  serene,  and 
saintly  spirit  of  Elizabeth  Carter  left  its  mortal  tenement 
for  the  world  of  light  and  life.  She  expired  at  her  lodgings 
in  Ciarges  Street,  Piccadilly. 

Her  sound  and  comprehensive  mind,  highly  cultured  as 
it  was,  could  produce  nothing  contemptible  :  but  it  wanted 
that  essential  qualification  of  the  true  poet,  active  originality, 
the  power  of  conceiving,  and  of  shaping  new  conceptions. 


216  LITEEAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  following  poem  is  a  favourable  specimen  of  her  style. 
Its  aptness  to  adhere  to  the  memory  proves  the  regularity 
of  its  numbers,  and  the  well  graduated  succession  of  its 
thoughts. 

THE  EVENING  WALK. 

"  How  sweet  the  calm  of  this  sequester'd  shore, 

Where  ebbing  waters  musically  roll ; 
And  solitude  and  silent  eve  restore 
The  philosophic  temper  of  the  soul. 

The  sighing  gale,  whose  murmurs  lull  to  rest 

The  busy  tumult  of  declining  day, 
To  sympathetic  quiet  soothes  the  breast, 

And  ev'ry  wild  emotion  dies  away. 

Farewell,  the  objects  of  diurnal  care, 

Your  task  be  ended  with  the  setting  sun  ; 
Let  all  be  undisturb'd  vacation  here, 

While  o'er  yon  wave  ascends  the  peaceful  moon. 

What  beauteous  visions  o'er  the  soften'd  heart 
In  this  still  moment  all  their  charms  diffuse, 

Serener  joys  and  brighter  hopes  impart, 
And  cheer  the  soul  with  more  than  mortal  views. 

Here  faithful  Mem'ry  wakens  all  her  pow'rs, 

She  bids  her  fair  ideal  forms  ascend, 
And  quick  to  ev'ry  gladden'd  thought  restores 

The  social,  virtue  and  the  absent  friend. 

Come, ,  come,  and  with  me  share, 

The  sober  pleasures  of  this  solemn  scene  ; 
While  no  rude  tempest  clouds  the  ruffled  air, 

But  all,  like  thee,  is  smiling  and  serene. 

Come,  while  the  cool,  the  solitary  hours 

Each  foolish  care,  and  giddy  wish  control, 
With  all  thy  soft  persuasion's  wonted  pow'rs, 

Beyond  the  stars  transport  my  listening  soul. 

Oft  when  the  earth  detained  by  empty  show, 

Thy  voice  has  taught  the  trifler  how  to  rise, 
Taught  her  to  look  with  scorn  on  things  below, 

And  seek  her  better  portion  in  the  skies. 

Come,  and  the  sacred  eloquence  repeat : 

The  world  shall  vanish  at  its  gentle  sound, 
Angelic  forms  shall  visit  this  retreat, 

And  opening  Heaven  diffuse  its  glories  round." 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.  217 

CHARLOTTE  SMITH. 

The  poet's  bleak  and  dreary  traject  through  this  world 
is  often  like  that  of  the  traveller  who,  treading  Arctic 
snow,  leaves  a  rose-coloured  track  behind  him.  One  of 
the  most  melancholy  among  female  biographies  is  that  of 
Charlotte  Smith,  not  because  of  its  unfortunate  incidents, 
but  because,  while  her  fine  genius  found  therein  invigo- 
rating exercise,  her  heart  never  learned  the  sweet  "  uses 
of  adversity." 

She  was  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Nicholas  Turner,  of  Stoke, 
near  Guildford,  in  Surrey,  and  of  Bignor  Park, ,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Arun,  in  Sussex.  At  the  latter  residence  she 
was  born,  on  the  4th  of  May  in  the  year  1749. 

Her  mother  died  when  she  was  an  infant,  and  an  aunt 
who  presided  over  the  family  endeavoured  to  check  little 
Charlotte's  predilection  for  books.  She  was  instructed 
in  the  usual  showy  knowledge  and  accomplishments  of  a 
gentlewoman,  and  excelled  in  everything  she  undertook; 
but  in  spite  of  all  obstacles  poetry  became  her  favourite 
pursuit,  and  the  local  traditions  of  her  neighbourhood 
served  to  cherish  her  love  for  it ;  for  Otway  and  Collins 
had  haunted  its  woods  and  downs. 

From  the  time  that  she  attained  her  twelfth  year,  she 
occasionally  resided  in  London  with  her  father  and  the 
family,  and  there  her  eager  thirst  for  knowledge  was 
gratified  by  enlarged  opportunities  of  observation,  con- 
versation, and  instruction. 

Her  father  held  a  partnership  in  a  mercantile  house,  in 
conjunction  with  a  Mr.  Smith,  who  was  also  one  of  the 
Directors  of  the  East  India  Company.  Mr.  Turner  in- 
tending to  give  his  children  a  stepmother,  Charlotte  was 
led,  by  the  desire  of  escaping  from  such  control,  to  take 


218  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  advice  of  some  ill-judging  relations  and  accept  the 
offered  hand  of  Mr.  Smith's  eldest  son  before  she  was 
sixteen  years  of  age,  her  husband  being  five  years  her 
senior,  though  much  inferior  in  discretion.  At  first,  the 
young  couple  had  a  house  in  London,  but  the  society  of 
the  east  end  was  ill-suited  to  the  refinement  of  her  taste, 
and  several  children  soon  increasing  her  household  cares, 
she  readily  acceded  to  her  husband's  wish  to  withdraw  to 
a  suburban  villa,  and  subsequently  to  remove  from  thence 
into  the  country. 

The  elder  Mr.  Smith,  indulging  his  son's  wayward  pre- 
ference for  rural  occupations,  purchased  and  presented  to 
him  a  farm  called  the  Lys,  situated  in  Hampshire,  and 
thither  the  young  family  went,  full  of  new  hopes  and  new 
projects.  A  lively,  active  fool  is  harder  to  guide  than 
even  a  dull  and  dogged  one.  Her  husband  possessed  in  a 
high  degree  the  art  of  self-delusion,  and  unfortunately 
believed'  himself  to  possess  extraordinary  abilities  for 
farming.  He  consequently  entered  upon  speculative  agri- 
culture with  a  bold  and  lavish  hand,  indulging  meanwhile 
in  an  expensive  household  and  habits  of  convivial  hos- 
pitality, and  looking  forward  to  imaginary  profits  to  make 
his  income  commensurate  with  his  extravagant  outlay. 

His  prudent  wife  remonstrated  in  vain,  and  in  the 
prospect  of  impending  ruin  soothed  her  anxieties  by  the 
composition  of  poetry.  "When  in  the  beech- woods  of 
Hampshire,"  she  says,  "I  first  struck  the  chords  of  the 
melancholy  lyre,  its  notes  were  never  intended  for  the 
public  ear ;  it  was  unaffected  sorrow  drew  them  forth.  I 
wrote  mournfully  because  I  was  unhappy." 

In  1776,  the  elder  Mr.  Smith  died,  leaving  a  voluminous 
and  inexplicable  will,  which  only  effectually  provided  for 
the  expenditure  of  the  greater  part  of  his  large  fortune 


LITERARY    W<>MKN    (•!•'    KN<!I.ANT>.  219 

1 1m  .uirliout  1<  >n;j-  years  of  lit  Ration,  by  encouraging  trustees 
and  aiivnts  to  oppose  the  claims  of  the  legatees. 

The  husband  of  Charlotte  Smith  having  been  selected 
to  serve  as  High  Sheriff  for  his  county,  the  expenses 
attendant  upon  the  office  produced  a  crisis  in  his  affairs 
and  caused  him  to  be  imprisoned  for  debt  in  the  King's 
Bench.  Thither  his  faithful  wife  accompanied  him ;  she 
spent  near  him,  and  in  assiduous  attendance  upon  him,  the 
whole  term  of  his  seven  months'  incarceration,  and  during 
the  latter  part  of  it  she  shared  his  captivity.  Having  at 
last,  by  her  successful  arrangement  of  his  affairs,  procured 
his  liberation,  she  enjoyed  the  gratification  of  returning 
with  him  to  her  paternal  home,  and  has  thus  recorded  her 
feelings  on  the  occasion : — 

"  It  was  on  the  2nd  day  of  July  that  we  commenced  our 
journey.  For  more  than  a  month  I  had  shared  the 
restraint  of  my  husband  in  a  prison,  amidst  scenes  of 
misery,  of  vice,  and  even  of  terror.  Two  attempts  had 
since  my  last  residence  among  them  been  made  by  the 
prisoners  to  procure  their  liberation,  by  blowing  up  the 
walls  of  the  house.  Throughout  the  night  appointed  for 
this  enterprise  I  remained  dressed,  watching  at  the  window, 
and  expecting  every  moment  to  witness  contention  and 
bloodshed,  or  perhaps  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  projected 
explosion,.  After  such  scenes  and  such  apprehensions  how 
deliciously  soothing  to  my  wearied  spirits  was  the  soft, 
pure  air  of  the  summer's  morning,  breathing  over  the 
dewy  grass,  as  (having  slept  one  night  on  the  road)  we 
passed  o\er  the  heaths  of  Surrey,  and  my  native  hills  at 
length  burst  upon  my  view!  I  beheld  once  more  the 
fields  where  I  liad  passed  my  happiest  days,  and  amidst 
the  perfumed  turf  with  which  one  of  those  field*  \va> 
strewn,  perceived  with  delight  tin-  l»elnvrd  irnmp  I'mm 


220  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

whom  I  had  been  so  long  divided,  and  for  whose  fate  my 
affections  were  ever  anxious.  The  transports  of  this  meet- 
ing were  too  much  for  my  exhausted  spirits.  After  all 
my  sufferings  I  began  to  hope  I  might  taste  content,  or 
experience  at  least  a  respite  from  my  calamities." 

This  passage  would  be  beautiful  but  for  the  use  of  the 
affected  term  "perfumed  turf"  instead  of  hay. 

While  a  sojourner  in  the  King's  Bench  Prison,  she  had 
prepared  a  volume  of  her  poems  for  publication.  On 
offering  it  to  Dodsley  he  rejected  it  at  a  glance.  Through 
her  brother's  intervention  it  was  then  offered  to  Dilly?  who 
also  refused  to  take  it.  She  therefore  had  it  printed  at 
Chichester,  with  a  dedication  to  her  friend  Mr.  Hayley, 
dated  May  10th,  1784.  A  second  edition  was  called  for 
in  the  course  of  the  same  year. 

Mr.  Smith,  having  been  made  aware  that  some  other  cre- 
ditors intended  to  arrest  him,  escaped  to  France,  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  who  soon  returned  to  England  with  the  hope  of 
arranging  his  affairs.  Failing  to  effect  that  object,  she  took 
her  children  back  with  her  to  France,  and  hiring  an  old  castle 
in  Normandy  spent  the  winter  there  with  her  husband. 

The  next  year  she  again  came  to  England,  and  suc- 
ceeded at  last  in  making  arrangements  with  the  creditors 
which  enabled  her  husband  to  return.  They  then  tenanted 
an  old  mansion-house  at  Wolbeding,  in  Sussex,  the  parish 
of  which  Otway's  father  had  once  been  rector.  Here  she 
wrote  the  sonnets  to  the  river  Arun — "  On  thy  wild 
banks,"  &c. 

Being  distressed  for  money  she  now  translated  a  novel 
from  the  French  of  the  Abbe  Prevost,  and  also  a  selection 
of  extraordinary  stories  from  '  Les  Causes  Celebres,'  which 
she  published  under  the  title  of '  The  Eomance  of  Real 
Life.'  Imprudence  and  debt  soon  exiled  her  husband  a 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  221 

iid  tiin.',  an<l  Charlotte  Smith  then  removed  with  her 
children  to   a  cottage   in   the   same  county,   where   she 
a-iduously  renewed  her  literary  labours. 
Pope  has  said, —       ^ 

"  True  ease  of  manner  suits  but  ill  with  art, 
Or  flowing  numbers  with  a  bleeding  heart." 

This,  like  most  of  his  other  axioms,  is  fallacious,  for  some 
of  the  most  natural  and  fluent  lines  of  British  poetry  have 
resulted  from  elaborate  correction,  and  some  of  the  sweetest 
verbal  melodies  in  all  languages  have  been  produced  under 
the  subsiding  emotions  of  grief. 

Charlotte  Smith,  in  her  quiet  place  of  retreat,  prepared  . 
and  published  an  enlarged  edition  of  her  sonnets,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  compose  a  series  of  prose  fictions.  In  1788,  she 
produced  her  '  Emineline,  or  The  Orphan  of  the  Castle,' 
and,  encouraged  by  its  great  success,  she  followed  it  up  with 
'Ethelinde'  in  1789,  with  <  Celestina'  in  1792,  and  with 
'Desmond'  in  1793.  This  last-named  novel,  advocating 
the  republican  and  irreligious  opinions  held  by  the  first 
French  revolutionists,  shocked  the  awakened  conscience 
of  the  English  public,  and  tended  to  impair  the  popularity 
which  her  former  writings  had  acquired.  She  soon  re- 
trieved this  mistake,  and  not  only  regained  the  favour  of 
all  readers  of  romantic  fiction  but  raised  her  literary  repu- 
tation to  its  highest  point  by  the  production  of  (  The  Old 
^lanor  House'  in  1793.  Part  of  this  admirable  novel  was 
written  at  Eartham,  while  she  was  the  guest  of  Hayley, 
and  Cowper  also  was  sharing  his  hospitable  kindness.  Of 
an  evening  she  used  to  read  aloud  to  them  what  she  had 
composed  during  the  day,  and  she  found  in  the  two  critics 
admiring  auditors.  Her  sweet  voice  and  excellent  elocu- 
tion are  said  to  have  enhanced  the  graces  of  her  diction. 

Her  next  novel  was  called '  The  AVanderings  of  Warwick,' 
then  came '  The  Banished  Man,'  and  in  1795,  *  Montalbert ; ' 


222  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

in  1796,  she  produced  ' Marchrnont,'  in  1798,  'The  Young 
Philosopher,'  and  subsequently  'The  Solitary  Wanderer,' 
making  in  all  thirty-eight  volumes. 

She  also  wrote  and  published,  fgr  the  use  of  young  per- 
sons, the  'Rural  Walks,'  <  Rambles  Farther,'  '  Minor  Morals,' 
and  '  Conversations,'  which  had  been  suggested  to  her  mind 
by  the  instructions  she  imparted  to  her  own  children. 
Like  all  books  practically  adapted  to  individual  children 
hers  proved  widely  useful,  and  long  stood  the  test  of  time. 

She  afterwards  published  a  poem  called  '  The  Emigrant,' 
and  a  second  volume  of  sonnets  concluded  the  long  list  of 
her  self-edited  works. 

Through  all  these  years  of  diligent  application  to  litera- 
ture, her  mind  was  incessantly  harassed  by  the  perplexities 
and  privations  attendant  upon  making  a  provision  for  her 
children,  by  the  ever-recurring  follies  and  wants  of  her 
husband,  and  by  the  expensive  litigation  carried  on  with 
the  trustees  of  her  father-in-law's  will. 

Her  eldest  son  obtained  a  writership  in  the  East  India 
Company's  service  at  Bengal ;  the  second  died  young ;  the 
third  died  also  in  youth,  of  a  fever ;  the  fourth  held  an 
ensign's  commission  in  the  24th  Regiment,  and  lost  a  leg 
at  the  siege  of  Dunkirk.  In  the  preface  to  the  second 
volume  of  her  sonnets,  she  mentions  her  four  elder  sons  as 
"  all  seeking  in  other  climates  the  competence  denied  them 
in  this,"  and  states  that  two  were  "  driven  from  their  pros- 
pects in  the  church  to  the  army  "  by  the  unjust  detention 
from  them  of  their  share  in  their  grandfather's  property ; 
complains  that  the  means  of  a  suitable  education  for  her 
youngest  son  are  denied  her  by  the  "  inhuman  trustees," 
and  bewails  the  death  of  "  the  loveliest  and  most  beloved 
of  her  daughters." 

Both  volumes  of  her  sonnets  were  published  by  subscrip- 
tion, and  brought  in  handsome  profits.  The  success  of 


UTKHAKY    WOMKN    <>F    KXGLANP.  223 

these,  and  the  still  greater  success  of  her  prose  works, 
furnished  her  with  the  means  of  maintenance  and  of 
educating  and  providing  for  her  numerous  children.  The 
personal  friendship  of  many  eminent  and  estimable  in- 
dividuals, won  for  her  by  those  literary  productions,  she 
valued  as  the  dearest  solace  of  her  sorrows.  Several  of 
her  sonnets  are  addressed  to  the  Hon.  Mrs.  O'Niel,  the 
most  beloved  and  intimate  of  them  all. 

In  March  1806,  her  wretched  husband  died  in  a  gaol, 
and  on  the  28th  of  the  following  October,  Charlotte  Smith's 
careworn  heart  ceased  to  beat.  She  expired  at  Telford, 
near  Farnham,  in  Surrey. 

A  volume  of  her  posthumous  poems  was  published  by 
her  representatives. 

She  was  a  good  wife,  a  tender  mother,  an  affectionate 
friend,  and  in  all  respects  an  upright  and  honourable  woman. 
Her  character  combined  those  rare  associates — delicate 
fineness  of  perception  and  infrangible  strength  of  purpose. 
Untaught  in  her  infancy  to  pray  to  Our  Father  who  is  in 
Heaven,  the  sacred  fire  of  devotion  was  never  enkindled 
upon  the  altar  of  her  heart  to  shed  its  healthful  warmth 
and  gladdening  light  from  within,  and  transmute  all  evils 
into  good.  Her  natural  disposition  was  lively  and  gay, 

"  She  like  a  scattered  seed  at  random  sown, 
Was  left  to  spring  by  vigour  of  her  own," 

and  far  outgrew  the  ordinaiy  standard  of  well  culti- 
vated female  minds.  She  made  herself  familiarly  ac- 
quainted with  the  poets,  historians,  and  writers  of  polite 
literature  of  her  own  country,  and  of  her  own  and  the  next 
preceding  generation,  with  the  language  and  poetry  of 
Italy,  and  with  the  language  and  general  literature  of 
France.  She  applied  herself  also  to  the  study  of  such 
sciences  as  explain  the  phenomena  of  the  earth,  air,  and 
sky,  and  took  peculiar  interest  in  natural  history.  She 


224  LITEEABY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

drew  skilfully,  and  was  fond  of  using  her  pencil  in  the 
delineation  of  botanical  specimens. 

Of  the  classic  authors  she  seems  to  have  known  only 
what  might  be  gathered  by  the  ear  from  the  conversation 
of  scholars,  or  caught  from  the  occasional  allusions  of 
English  poetry.  In  her  seventy-third  sonnet  she  says, 

"Wilt  thou  yet  murmur  at  a  misplaced  leaf?  " 

and  in  a  note  refers  to  "  a  story,  I  know  not  where  told,  of  a 
fastidious  being,"  &c.,  showing  utter  ignorance  of  the  effemi- 
nacy of  the  Sybarites.  Well  had  it  been  for  her  had  she 
known  as  little  of  Goethe's  '  Sorrows  of  Werter,'  and  of  the 
writings  of  Kousseau  as  she  did  of  the  ancient  Greeks ! 

Discontent  was  the  bane  of  her  happiness.  Viewing 
this  world  only  as  a  day  for  enjoyment,  the  next  world 
merely  as  a  night  for  repose,  she  rebelled  against  troubles 
and  trials  as  unjust  inflictions,  not  discerning  their  proba- 
tionary use,  in  the  preparation  of  human  character  for  an 
immortal  and  heavenly  life.  Misfortunes  soured  and 
embittered  her  feelings ;  they  even  narrowed  and  warped 
her  noble  mind. 

Few  women  have  ever  possessed  greater  advantages  of 
capacity  and  ability,  of  acquirement  and  influence.  Her 
faculties  were  of  no  common  kind.  Her  mind  had  natu- 
rally great  scope,  comprising  the  high  imaginative  power 
of  an  inborn  poet,  with  the  accuracy  of  detail  and  sound 
common  sense  which  constitute  the  woman  of  business  and 
worldly  wisdom.  To  her  belonged  also  that  attribute  of 
noble  natures,  pervading  sincerity ;  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings of  her  every-day  existence  being  the  opinions  and 
sentiments  of  her  prose  and  poetry.  There  is  that  charm 
in  her  poetry  which  belongs  only  to  genius.  The  tone  is 
too  monotonous,  the  spirit  too  querulous ;  it  wants  the 
exulting  and  exalting  notes  of  the  caroller  who  soars  to 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  225 

llio  skies  and  dwells  Mis^fully  in  the  turf,  yet  it  has  a  sort 
of  ravishment  like  tli«>  nightingale's  strains,  ever  pleasing 
though  plaintive. 

ON  THE  DEPARTURE  OF  THE  NIGHTINGALE. 

41  Sweet  poet  of  the  woods— a  long  adieu  ! 

Farewell,  soft  minstrel  of  the  early  yen  ! 
Ah  !  't  will  be  long  ere  thou  shalt  sing  anew, 

And  pour  thy  music  on  '  the  night's  dull  > 
Whether  on  Spring  thy  wandering  flights  await, 

Or  whether  silent  in  our  groves  you  dwell, 
The  pensive  muse  shall  own  thee  for  her  mate, 

And  still  protect  the  song  she  loves  so  well. 
With  cautious  step,  the  love-lorn  youth  shall  glide 

Thro'  the  lone  brake  that  shades  thy  mossy  nest ; 
And  shepherd  girls  from  eyes  profane  shall  hidr 

The  gentle  bird,  who  sings  of  pity  best : 
For  still  thy  voice  shall  soft  affections  move, 
And  still  be  dear  to  sorrow  and  to  love  !  " 


To  SPRING. 

"  Again  the  wood  and  long-withdrawing  vale 

In  many  a  tint  of  tender  green  are  drest, 
Where  the  young  leaves,  unfolding,  scarce  conceal 

Beneath  their  early  shade,  the  half-formed  nest 
Of  finch  or  woodlark  ;  and  the  primrose  pale, 

And  lavish  cowslip,  wildly  scatter'd  round, 
Give  their  sweet  spirits  to  the  sighing  gale. 

Ah  !  season  of  delight ! — could  aught  be  found 
To  soothe  awhile  the  tortured  bosom's  pain, 

Of  Sorrow's  rankling  shaft  to  cure  the  wound, 
And  bring  life's  first  delusions  once  again, 

T  were  surely  met  in  thee !— thy  prospect  fair, 
Thy  sounds  of  harmony,  thy  balmy  air, 
Have  power  to  cure  all  sadness — but  despair." 


To  FORTITUDE. 

Nymph  of  the  rock  !  whose  dauntless  spirit  braves 

The  beating  storm,  and  bitter  winds  that  howl 
Round  thy  cold  breast ;  and  hear'st  the  bursting  waves, 

And  the  deep  thunder  with  unshaken  soul ; 
Oh  come ! — and  show  how  vain  the  cares  that  press 

On  my  weak  bosom — and  how  little  worth 
Is  the  false  fleeting  meteor,  Happiness, 

That  still  misleads  the  wanderers  of  the  earth  ! 

Q 


226  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Strengthened  by  thee,  this  heart  shall  cease  to  melt 
O'er  ills  that  poor  humanity  must  bear ; 

Nor  friends  estranged,  or  ties  dissolved  be  felt 
To  leave  regret,  and  fruitless  anguish  there  : 

And  when  at  length  it  heaves  its  latest  sigh, 

Thou  and  mild  Hope  shall  teach  me  how  to  die." 


THE  GOSSAMER. 

"  O'er  faded  heath-flowers  spun,  or  thorny  furze, 

The  filmy  Gossamer  is  lightly  spread  ;  * 

Waving  in  every  sighing  air  that  stirs, 

As  Fairy  fingers  had  enwtined  the  thread  : 
A  thousand  trembling  orbs  of  lucid  dew 

Spangle  the  texture  of  the  fairy  loom, 
As  if  soft  Sylphs,  lamenting  as  they  flew, 

Had  wept  departed  Summer's  transient  bloom  : 
But  the  wind  rises,  and  the  turf  receives 

The  glittering  web  : — So,  evanescent,  fade 
Bright  views  that  Youth  with  sanguine  heart,  believes  : 

So  vanish  schemes  of  bliss,  by  Fancy  made  ; 
Which,  fragile  as  the  fleeting  dreams  of  morn, 
Leave  but  the  wither'd  heath,  and  barren  thorn  !  " 

In  her  35th  sonnet  (To  FORTITUDE)  there  is  a  tone  which 
reveals  how  sublimely  she  might  have  learned  to  triumph 
over  earth-born  cares,  had  she  applied  to  the  right  source  for 
strength.  Her  versification  is  always  graceful  and  always 
melodious,  though  sometimes  languid  and  too  full  of  quoted 
lines. 

The  following  little  poem  indicates  her  knowledge  of 
botanic  localities,  and  of  the  writings  of  Linnaeus.  It  has 
peculiar  interest  as  affording  a  comparison  with  one  written 
upon  the  same  subject  by  Felicia  Hemans. 

FLORA'S  HOROLOGE. 

"  In  every  copse  and  sheltered  dell, 

Unveiled  to  the  observant  eye, 
Are  faithful  monitors  who  tell 

How  pass  the  hours  and  seasons  by. 

The  green-robed  children  of  the  Spring 

Will  mark  the  periods  as  they  pass, 
Mingle  with  leaves  Time's  feathered  wing, 

And  bind  with  flowers  his  silent  glass. 


1.1TKKAKY     \\OMKN    <>F     K.M!|..\NI>.  2*27 

Mark  \vliriv  trans|>aiviit  \vatrrs  glidr, 

Soft  flowing  o'er  their  tranquil  bnl  : 
There,  cradled  on  the  dimpling  tid<  , 

Nymphea  rests  her  lovt-ly  l:i ..  1. 

But,  conscious  of  the  rarlii-.st  beam. 

She  rises  from  her  humid  nest, 
And  sees  refleeted  in  the  stream, 

The  virgin  whiteness  of  her  breast ; 

Till  the  bright  day-star  to  the  west 

Declines,  in  ocean's  surge  to  lave, 
Then,  folded  in,  her  modest  vest, 

She  slumbers  on  the  rocking  wave. 

See  Hieraciurn's  various  tribe, 

Of  plumy  seed  and  radiate  flowers, 
The  course  of  Time  their  blooms  describe 

And  wake  or  sleep  appointed  hours. 

Broad  o'er  its  imbricated  cup, 

The  Goatsbcard  spreads  its  golden  rays, 
But  shuts  its  cautious  petals  up, 

Retreating  from  the  noon-tide  blaze. 

Pale  as  a  pensive  cloistered  nun, 

The  Bcthlem  Star  her  face  unveils, 
When  o'er  the  mountain  peers  the  sun, 

But  shades  it  from  the  vesper  gales. 

Among  the  loose  and  arid  sands, 

The  humble  Arenaria  creeps, 
Slowly  the  purple  star  expands, 

But  soon  within  its  calyx  sleeps. 

And  those  small  bells  so  lightly  rayed 

With  young  Aurora's  rosy  hue, 
Are  to  the  noontide  sun  displayed, 

But  shut  their  plaits  against  the  dew. 

On  upland  slopes,  the  shepherds  mark 

The  hour,  when  as  the  dial  true, 
Cichorium  to  the  towering  lark 

Lifts  her  soft  eye,  serenely  blue. 

And  thou,  '  Wee  crimson- tipped  flower,' 

Gatherest  thy  fringed  mantle  round 
Thy  bosom  at  the  closing  hour, 

When  night-drops  bathe  the  turfy  ground. 

Unlike  Silene,  who  declines 

The  garish  noontide's  blazing  light, 
But  when  the  evening  crescent  shines 

Gives  all  her  sweetness  to  the  night. 

Q2 


228  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Thus  in  each  flower  and  simple  bell 

That  in  our  path  betrodden  lie, 
Are  sweet  remembrancers  who  tell 

How  fast  their  winged  moments  fly." 

The  admirable  merit  of  her  prose  fictions  is  indisputable. 
She  excels  in  descriptions  of  nature,  but  always  keeps  her 
scenery  in  subservience  to  her  personages.  Her  stories 
are  not  usually  remarkable  for  skilful  complications,  but 
they  excite  that  sort  of  interest  which  events  derive  from 
being  related  by  one  who  has  taken  part  in  them.  Great 
experience  of  life,  keen  observation,  and  satiric  wit,  flash 
forth  from  every  page.  There  is  nothing  strikingly 
original  in  her  characters,  but  they  all  have  the  air  of 
real  human  beings,  speaking  so  naturally  as  to  sustain  our 
eager  interest,  feeling  so  keenly  as  to  touch  our  tearful  sym- 
pathies, thinking  so  erroneously  and  so  despondingly  as  to 
cause  a  sort  of  contemptuous  compassion  to  blend  with  our 
just  admiration  of  her  extraordinary  abilities. 

Her  novels  seem  to  have  been  composed  and  printed  in 
great  haste,  bearing  evident  marks  of  negligence  in  the 
construction  of  sentences,  and  being  so  full  of  verbal  mis- 
takes as  to  suggest  the  probability  that  the  manuscripts 
were  scarcely  legible,  and  that  she  had  never  corrected 
the  proof-sheets. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE  POETESSES. 

V.D.  1806-1810. 

Hannah  Cowley  —  Anna  Seward  —  Mary  Tighe. 


1  Diverse  voci  fanno  dolci  note." 

DANTE,  'Dell  Paradise,'  vi.  124. 

Of  diverse  voices  is  sweet  music  made." 

CARV'S  Translation,  Canto  6,  line  127. 


HANNAH  COWLEY, 

THE  greatest  of  our  female  comic-dramatists,  was  the 
daughter  of  Mr.  Philip  Parkhouse,  a  well  educated  and 
intelligent  bookseller,  and  born  in  1743,  at  Tiverton,  in 
Devonshire.  The  poet  Gay  was  their  kinsman,  and  per- 
haps his  fame  stimulated  Mr.  Parkhouse's  inclination 
towards  learning,  and  increased  the  pride  and  pleasure 
which  he  felt  in  cultivating  the  precocious  abilities  of  his 
shy  and  gentle  daughter.  She  imbibed  his  knowledge 
from  conversation  rather  than  by  any  regular  course  of  in- 
struction, for  which  she  had  no  aptitude.  Had  she  been  a 
person  of  high  birth,  and  lived  in  Tudor  times,  she  would 
have  left  behind  no  fame  of  mastered  languages  and 
operose  translations,  but  rather  would  have  expended  her 
vivacious  fancy  wholly  in  diffusing  domestic  cheerfulness, 
and  in  the  invention  of  masques  and  pageants. 

At  twenty-five  years  of  age  Hannah  Parkhouse  married 


230  LITEEAEY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

Captain  Cowley,  an  amiable  and  well-educated  man,  and 
went  with  him  to  reside  in  London.  She  did  not  often 
attend  stage  performances,  but  sitting  one  night  at  the 
theatre  with  her  husband,  and  noticing  his  lively  interest 
in  the  play  which  was  being  represented,  she  became 
suddenly  conscious  of  her  own  dramatic  power,  and  ex- 
claimed, "  So  delighted  with  this  ?  Why,  I  could  write 
as  well  myself!"  He  smiled  incredulously,  for  she  had 
attained  the  age  of  thirty-three  and  given  no  tokens  of 
likelihood. 

The  next  morning  she  wrote  a  sketch  of  the  first  act  of 
her  i  Runaway,'  which  effectually  convinced  her  husband 
of  her  ability.  She  rapidly  completed  the  comedy ;  it 
was  favourably  received  by  Mr.  Garrick,  brought  upon  the 
stage,  and  acted  with  such  distinguished  success,  that  her 
reputation  as  a  comic-dramatist  became  at  once  established. 
This  proved  to  be  the  last  play  which  the  English  Koscius 
ever  superintended.  On  its  first  representation  the  part  of 
Emily  was  performed  by  Mrs.  Siddons,  whose  wonderful 
tragic  powers  had  not  yet  been  recognized  by  a  London 
audience.  This  comedy  is  much  better  adapted  for  acting 
than  for  reading.  Its  moral  merit  is  negative,  for  in  a 
licentious  age,  when  ceremonious  manners  veiled  very 
thinly  gross  and  prevalent  immoralities,  she  dared  both  in 
thought  and  word  to  be  delicate  and  modest,  and  is  repre- 
hensible only  for  her  too  ardent  descriptions  of  lawful  love. 
The  exaggerated  and  bombastic  manner  of  making  it  is 
copied  from  the  fashion  of  the  times.  The  tragedy  of 
1  Albina '  seems  to  have  been  her  next  composition,  as  it 
is  said  to  have  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Garrick 
immediately  after  he  had  quitted  the  stage,  which  he  did 
in  1776.  It  was  produced  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre  in 
1779,  and  met  with  a  certain  measure  of  success.  The 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  231 

plot  is  well  suited  for  stage  effect:  the  tone  moral  and 
chivalrous.  The  blank  verse  is  of  the  worst  kind,  having 
no  proper  rhythm,  and  scarcely  an  attempt  at  it,  beyond 
a  few  passages  imitated  from  some  inflated  speeches  of 
Shakspeare.  It  is  designed  to  illustrate  the  passion  of 
envy,  and  fulfils  its  purpose.  In  the  same  year,  1779,  her 
comedy,  called  '  Who's  the  Dupe  ? '  was  brought  out  at 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,,  and  met  with  great  applause.  For 
this  play  her  father,  at  her  request,  furnished  her  "  with 
Greek  to  laugh  at."  Even  in  reading,  the  effect  of  the 
author's  buoyant  humour  is  so  exhilarating  that  the  heart 
must  be  sad  indeed  which  cannot  share  its  merriment ; 
and  upon  the  stage  its  irresistible  drollery  insured  its 
popularity ;  in  spite  of  the  splenetic  critics,  who  censured 
it  as  farce-like,  although  framed  from  those  constituent 
elements  of  college  seclusion  and  town  intercourse,  which 
must  offer  a  lively  contrast  in  any  civilized  age. 

In  1780,  Mrs.  Cowley  reached  the  zenith  of  her  dramatic 
course  in  '  The  Belle's  Stratagem.'  This  admirable  comedy 
was  brought  out  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  and  received 
with  the  highest  favour.  When  printed  it  was  dedicated 
by  special  permission  to  Queen  Charlotte;  and  that  dis- 
creet reformer  of  the  British  Court,  with  her  royal  spouse, 
King  George  III.,  continued  to  patronise  that  spirited 
comedy  as  long  as  they  attended  theatrical  performances. 
It  has  stood  the  test  of  time,  and  won  a  place  among  the 
standard  dramas  of  the  country  ;  establishing  the  right  of 
Hannah  Cowley  to  have  her  name  enrolled  among  those 
of  the  ablest  comic  writers  of  her  period,  Goldsmith  and 
Macklin,  Cumberland,  Colman,  and  Sheridan. 

At  the  same  theatre,  two  years  afterwards,  her  comedy 
of  '  Which  is  the  Man  ?  '  was  warmly  welcomed,  although 
far  below  the  '  Belle's  Stratagem '  in  merit.  Her  whimsical 


232  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

and  clever  comedy,  entitled  '  A  Bold  Stroke  for  a  Hus- 
band/ achieved  a  triumph  in  1783,  which  was  only 
secondary  to  that  of  '  The  Belle's  Stratagem.'  The  beauti- 
ful Mrs.  Robinson  was  the  Yictoria  of  its  first  series  of 
representations. 

In  1783,  her  beloved  husband  left  her  to  join  his  regi- 
ment in  Bengal,  and  she  soothed  the  pains  of  absence  by 
writing  the  sprightly  comedy  of  '  More  Ways  than  One,' 
which  was  successfully  acted  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre  in 
that  year,  and  published  with  a  dedication  to  him. 

In  1786,  her  '  School  for  Grey-beards '  came  out  at 
Drury  Lane.  Part  of  the  plot  of  this  comedy  was  taken 
by  a  friend  from  an  old  play  and  given  to  her  to  be 
worked  out.  It  is  said  to  be  the  only  one  of  her  eleven 
successful  dramas  which  did  not  wholly  spring  from  her 
own  fertile  fancy.  The  first  Donna  Seraphina  in  this 
piece  was  Miss  Farren ;  the  first  Don  Henry,  Mr.  J.  P. 
Kemble. 

In  1788,  her  '  Fate  of  Sparta '  came  out  at  Drury  Lane. 
It  is  founded  on  the  well-known  history  of  Leonidas  and 
Cleombrotus,  and  the  filial  and  conjugal  duty  of  Chelonice. 
On  the  first  representation  the  part  of  the  heroine  was 
performed  by  Mrs.  Siddons.  The  stage  situations  are 
striking,  the  diction  is  better,  and  the  metre  more  exact 
than  those  of  '  Albina ; '  but  this  second  tragedy,  though 
not  a  failure,  tended  to  establish  the  fact,  that  the  ability 
of  Mrs.  Cowley  was  essentially  comic. 

In  1792,  her  comedy,  called  '  A  Day  in  Turkey,'  full  of 
lively  dialogue,  and  of  exciting  incidents  for  stage  effect, 
was  successfully  brought  out  at  Covent  Garden. 

In  1795,  her  comedy  of l  The  Town  before  You,'  appeared 
at  the  same  theatre,  and  closed  an  almost  unparalleled 
series  of  dramatic  successes. 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  233 

It  is  remarkable  that  most  of  the  prologues  and  epi- 
logues of  her  plays  were  written  by  herself.  She  had  a 
peculiar  turn  for  such  compositions,  and  conformably  to 
an  aphorism  which  was  probably  unknown  to  her,  that 
"  prepossession  of  mind  requires  preface  of  speech,"  she 
exercised  an  instinctive  faculty  not  only  for  preparing  the 
temper  of  an  audience  to  listen  favourably,  but  also  for 
inciting  them  to  crown  her  efforts  with  acceptance  and 
applause.  She  evidently  had  learned  all  that  she  best 
knew  from  experience,  and  from  a  sort  of  unintentional 
observation  of  surrounding  life  and  conversation.  In  her 
comedies  she  described  the  manners  she  saw,  wrote  the 
phrases  she  heard,  and  invented  with  original  and  un- 
taught skill,  out  of  materials  acquired  she  knew  not  how, 
all  the  complexities  and  varieties  of  plots  and  pleasant 
dialogues.  In  the  characters  her  scope  is  not  wide,  and 
her  favourites  reappear  with  different  names  in  all ;  more 
especially  the  sprightly,  elegant,  and  virtuous  woman  of 
fashion,  highly  cultivated,  yet  natural  and  spontaneous, 
self-possessed,  and  "  mistress  of  her  whole  situation."  Pro- 
bably the  idea  of  this  dramatic  personage  was  caught  from 
the  innocent  and  airy  bearing  of  some  lady  of  her  ac- 
quaintance. Her  celebrity  must  have  won  many  fashion- 
able patronesses,  the  graces  of  polished  society  were  con- 
genial to  her  taste,  and  she  could  throw  herself  successfully 
into  any  ideal  form.  Perhaps  a  recollection  of  Moliere's 
Clarinda  might  influence  this  conception,  and  certainly 
the  fascinations  of  a  Younge  and  a  Farren  conduced  to  the 
effect,  if  not  to  the  production  of  these  charming  heroines. 

The  preface  to  her  '  Collected  Works/  3  vols.  8vo.,  1813, 
gives  a  very  meagre  account  of  her  life,  and  of  the  deve- 
lopment and  working  of  her  mind.  It  states,  however, 
that  "  she  was  accustomed  to  say  that  she  always  succeeded 


234  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

best  when  she  herself  did  not  know  what  she  was  going  to 
do,  and  suffered  the  plot  to  grow  under  her  pen." 

It  is  added — "  In  her  plays  posterity  may,  perhaps,  find 
as  complete  specimens  as  will  reach  them  of  English 
colloquy  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
of  manners  as  characteristic  of  the  day  as  the  style  of  the 
elder  dramatists  is  of  theirs." 

This  is  most  true;  even  the  ungrammatical  phrase, 
"  You  was,"  constantly  occurs  in  her  comedies ;  and  all 
contemporary  literature  proves  that  she  rightly  delineated 
the  people  of  her  generation.  She  excelled  in  sketching 
and  colouring  surfaces ;  the  ripples,  light  waves,  and  little 
weirs  of  the  social  stream,  she  traced  wTith  admirable  skill ; 
but  the  ocean  depths  of  thought  and  feeling  lay  far  beyond 
her  sounding-lead,  and  consequently  her  tragedies  were 
worthless,  and  her  poems  inane. 

In  confessing  that  she  was  the  Anna  Matilda  who  cor- 
responded with  Mr.  Merry,  under  his  signature  of  Delia 
Crusca,  the  style  of  her  poetry  is  announced,  and  declara- 
tion made,  that  her  verses  are  mere  artificial  compositions, 
devoid  of  real  bardic  inspiration.  In  the  language  of  con- 
versation, whether  grave  or  gay,  sentimental  or  satirical, 
Mrs.  Cowley  is  invariably  fluent ;  but  when  she  leaves  the 
causeway  of  ordinary  life  for  the  airy  mountain  regions  of 
poetry,  she  loses  her  power,  wants  apt  thoughts,  apt  words, 
and  all  the  true  graces  of  diction,  while,  retaining  an  un- 
fortunate facility  wholly  verbose,  she  pours  forth  reversed 
sentences  and  turgid  phrases  in  unequal  and  inharmonious 
measures.  In  her  comedies  all  is  easy  and  natural,  in  her 
tragedies  and  poems  all  is  distorted  and  bombastic ;  and 
her  darling  epithet,  tortuous,  exactly  expresses  the  effect 
of  such  poetasting  upon  her  readers. 

She  never  was  fond  of  reading,  but  preferred  travels  to 


LITEHARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.        235 

any  other  books,  as  they  suited  the  habit  of  superficial 
observation,  which  was  congenial  to  her  mind.  Her 
memory  was  not  remarkably  tenacious,  but  it  served  to 
illustrate  her  own  lines : — 

"  What  others  gain  by  study  liard, 
Flows  in  upon  the  musing  bard, 
A  word,  the  slightest  hint  will  do, 
To  bring  all  knowledge  in  review." 

In  poetry,  however,  be  the  subject  what  it  may,  those 
illustrations  and  enhancements  are  needed  which  only  a 
rich  memory  can  pour  forth  from  its  treasures ;  and  con- 
sequently there  the  poverty  of  an  unstored  mind  must  be 
helplessly  laid  open.  In  a  collateral  line  with  her  dra- 
matic triumphs  runs  the  series  of  her  once  admired  poems. 
In  1780,  she  published  the  first, part  and  a  fragment  of 
the  second  part  of  her  tale  in  blank  verse  called  'The 
Maid  of  Arragon.'  The  story  is  as  ill-concocted  as  the 
verse :  nothing  more  silly  could  be  devised  than  the 
heroine's  conduct,  in  going  out  alone  by  moonlight,  en- 
countering an  utter  stranger,  telling  him  the  secret  which 
involved  her  own  and  her  father's  life  and  liberty,  and 
discovering  too  late,  that  this  insidious  new  acquaintance 
is  a  suborned  traitor,  who  has  come  there  on  purpose  to 
make  them  captives. 

In  1786,  she  wrote  'The  Scottish  Village/  which,  being 
in  rhymed  iambics,  has  a  little  more  order,  if  not  more 
rhythm,  than  her  blank  verse ;  but  her  notion  of  poetry 
seemed  to  be  comprised  in  a  fettered,  cramped,  and  de- 
formed style  of  ordinary  English.  No  sooner  does  she 
begin  to  write  verse,  than  all  is  "  mellifluous,"  •'<  tortuous," 
and  Delia  Cruscan.  In  '  The  Scottish  Village,'  her  praise 
of  her  contemporaries,  Miss  Seward,  Mrs.  Barbauld,  and 
Miss  Burney,  evinces  a  heart  free  from  envy  and  full  of 
generous  enthusiasm. 


236  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Her  l  Elegy  on  a  Field  of  Battle  '  contains  a  few  good 
lines.  For  instance  ; — 

"  Ah,  wayward  Fancy  bids  dread  scenes  revive, 

Which  Time's  dark  mists  had  veiled  from  mortal  ken  ; 
Embattled  squadrons  rush  as  when  alive, 

And  shadowy  falchions  gleam  o'er  shadowy  men  !" 

Dryden  appears  to  have  been  her  poetical  model,  and 
well  selected  in  one  particular ;  for  there  was,  alike  in  the 
imitated  and  the  imitator,  an  essentially  prosaic  element ; 
but  she  unfortunately  adds  the  want  of  energy  to  his  de- 
plorable want  of  sentiment.  The  harmony  of  her  versi- 
fication improves  chronologically,  but  she  was  incapable  of 
attaining  the  full  and  free  command  of  a  poetic  lyre  of  any 
form  or  size. 

The  home  occupation^  of  her  'Edwina  the  Huntress,' 
are  those  of  the  fine  ladies  of  Mrs.  Cowley's  own  days. 

"  Her  needle's  skill  made  tenderest  flowerets  blow, 
Which  now  in  sweet  festoons  around  her  glow  ; 
In  cooling  grots  her  shell-work  seized  the  eye, 
With  skill  arranged  to  show  each  blending  dye  ; 
The  age's  taste  her  garden  well  displayed, 
Her  vivid  fancy  each  parterre  arrayed, 
Here  yews  in  shape  of  solid  walls  she  reared, 
Or  there  a  dreary  castle  they  appeared  ; 
In  box  the  eagle  hovered  o'er  its  nest, 
Or  couchant  lions  seemed  resigned  to  rest." 

The  fair  Edwina's  field-sports,  however,  differed  essen- 
tially from  those  of  Mrs.  Cowley's  time : — 

"  For  her  the  hawking  party  was  prepared, 
She  roused  the  wolf,  the  foaming  boar  she  chased, 
And  danger's  self  was  in  her  presence  graced." 

The  following  lines,  from  the  third  book  of  *  The  Siege 
of  Acre/  afford  a  favourable  specimen  of  Mrs.  Cowley's 
descriptive  poetry : — 

"  Soft  twilight's  gentle  mission  came  in  vain. 
No  more  the  signal  now  to  quit  the  plain, 
And  soon  the  night  her  shades  more  thickly  threw 
And  hid  creation  from  the  tortured  view. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLANH.  237 

But  raging  battle  gives  its  own  dread  light, 

From  roofs  on  fire,  flames  flash  upon  the  sight, 

Amidst  the  vast  of  sable  ether  soar 

The  dismal  dirges  of  the  cannon's  roar, 

In  flumes  sent  forth  in  curving  flight  shells  glow, 

And  Death's  own  beams  his  frequent  murders  show. 

The  sea's  black  surges  catch  the  lurid  lay, 

And  every  billow  foams  with  fiery  spray, 

Here  waves  terrific  drown  the  cannon's  roar, 

Sinuous  roll  along  and  sparkle  up  the  shore  ; 

There  mounts  of  aqueous  flame  arrest  the  sight, 

And  ocean  heaves  its  Heclas  on  the  night : 

Now,  on  their  points,  the  vessels  seem  to  burn, 

Or  down  abysses  dark  to  overturn, 

Unquenched  the  glowing  masts  again  aspire, 

The  men  ascending  ropes  of  tortuous  fire. 

On  shore,  the  palms  deception  lift  in  air, 

And  branchy  sycamores  unhurtful  glare  ; 

Quick  floods  of  flame  bring  out  each  darkened  hill, 

Their  rough  contours  with  transient  radiance  fill, 

And  gleam  down  every  slope,  point  every  line, 

And  each  sharp  ridge  with  pencilled  fire  define  : 

They  pierce  the  gloom  which  hovered  o'er  the  slain, 

Revealing  those  who  lay  convulsed  with  pain. 

Here  showing  men  who  heave  with  doubtful  life, 

There,  where  last  agonies  have  closed  the  strife. 

The  moans  of  pain  are  floating  through  the  air, 

The  shrieks  of  torture,  groans  of  deep  despair. 

That  scene  excites  too  torturous  a  sigh, 

Where  as  men  kill,  they  're  slain,  by  others  who  must  die." 

This  is  her  most  ambitious  and  elaborate  poem,  and  was 
written  in  or  about  the  year  1799.  It  acquired  great 
popularity  from  the  historic  interest  of  the  subject  and 
the  fame  of  its  hero,  Sir  Sydney  Smith ;  nevertheless,  its 
animation  is  merely  galvanic,  and  possesses  none  of  the 
real  attributes  of  continuous  life. 

Mrs.  Cowley  was  a  woman  of  retired  habits,  and  of  un- 
affected and  agreeable  manners.  Her  happiness  was  in 
her  home ;  she  dearly  loved  her  parents,  her  husband,  and 
her  four  children,  and  liked  the  quiet  occupations  of  paint- 
ing and  sculpture.  Just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  first 
French  Revolution,  she  spent  a  year  in  France  for  the 
benefit  of  her  daughter's  education.  In  1797,  sho  hrcame 


238  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

a  widow  ;  and  in  1801,  she  left  the  great  metropolis,  which 
had  been  so  long  her  place  of  abode,  and  returned  to 
spend  the  remainder  of  her  life  at  Tiverton,  her  native 
town.  She  had  run  ambition's  course,  and  won  its  wreaths. 
Contented  and  thankful  for  the  past,  she  now  aspired  to  a 
higher  and  immortal  prize. 

Her  l  Summons  to  Painting/  her  *  Epistle  Kemonstra- 
tive,'  and  her  '  Fireside  Tour,'  are  easy  and  lively  pieces 
of  verse,  which  derive  their  interest  almost  entirely  from 
the  intimations  they  afford  of  her  habits  of  life  in  her 
latter  years.  They  show  her  taking  an  active  part  in  the 
society  of  the  town  and  neighbourhood,  making  and  re- 
ceiving morning  visits,  attending  evening  assemblies, 
chatting  with  the  friends  of  her  childhood,  revising  her 
works  for  reprinting,  and  gardening  with  all  the  alacrity  of 
health  and  happiness. 

*  The  Emigration  of  the  House  of  Braganza,'  a  poem 
suggested  by  the  event  which  occurred  in  1807,  was  one 
of  her  last  compositions. 

She  had  never  suffered  from  serious  illness  until  early 
in  the  year  1808,  when  her  constitution  began  gradually 
to  break  up;  and,  discerning  the  approaching  end,  she 
looked  forward  with  tranquil  hope  to  immortality.  The 
last  verses  she  ever  wrote  were  entitled  '  A  Petition  after 
Thaw-flood,'  and  prefixed  to  a  subscription  paper  in  behalf 
of  a  poor  man  whose  property  had  been  destroyed  by  the 
inundation.  He  obtained  thereby  compensation  for  his 
losses.  On  the  10th  of  March,  1809,  she  was  busy  in  her 
garden  planting  flowers :  the  next  morning,  for  the  first 
time,  she  felt  too  ill  to  leave  her  bed  ;  and  on  the  evening 
of  the  same  day,  Saturday,  the  llth,  she  peacefully  expired 
at  the  age  of  sixty-six. 


LITKKAKV    \VnMKN    OF    EN(ILANI). 


ANNE  SEWARD, 

•The  Swan  of  Liclifield,'  'The  Inventress  of  Epic 
Elegy,'  the  idol  of  her  circle,  and  one  of  the  most  admired 
beauties  and  writers  of  her  day,  was  born  at  the  rectory  of 
Eyam  in  Derbyshire,  amid  the  wonderful  scenery  of  the 
Peak,  and  near  the  manufacturing  town  of  Sheffield, 
renowned  for  its  cutlery.  In  the  Biographical  Preface  to 
Sir  Walter  Scott's  edition  of  her  *  Poems  and  Juvenile 
Letters,'  he  states  distinctly  that  she  was  born  in  the  year 
1747,  without  mentioning  the  month  or  day  ;  and  in  these 
particulars  his  statement  has  been  copied  by  all  the 
numerous  authorities  consulted  by  the  writer  of  the 
present  work.  A  passage  in  one  of  those  letters  mentions 
that  on  the  12th  of  the  preceding  December  she  bade 
farewell  "  to  the  soft  and  musically  sounding  teens  ;"  thus 
fixing  her  birthday,  and  suggesting  by  its  place  in  her 
correspondence,  that  she  must  have  attained  her  twentieth 
year  long  before  1767.  The  essayist  consequently  wrote 
to  Eyam  to  ascertain  the  truth,  and  received  from  the 
present  obliging  rector  a  copy  of  the  following  entry  in  the 
parocliial  Register  :  "  1742,  December  24,  baptised  Anne, 
the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Seward,  rector  of  Eyam, 
and  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Seward,  his  wife."  Her  father  was  a 
man  of  independent  fortune,  a  prebendary  of  Salisbury, 
and  canon  residentiary  of  Lichfield.  He  was  a  poet,  and 
some  of  his  verses  were  published  in  the  second  volume 
of  Dodsley's  Collection.  He  edited,  in  1  750,  an  edition  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Plays,  which  was  for  many  years 
afterwards  considered  the  best  in  existence.  Her  mother 
was  the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  William  Hunter,  head-master 
of  the  Lichfield  Grammar-school,  and  famous  for  the  cele- 
brity of  his  pupils,  Samuel  Johnson  and  David  Garrick. 


240  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Seward  had  several  daughters,  and  one 
of  them,  named  Jane,  was  baptised  in  July  1747,  and 
doubtless  born  in  that  year,  usually  assigned  to  her  sister 
Anne :  they  had  also  a  son,  but  all  their  children  died  in 
infancy,  excepting  the  poetess,  and  Sarah,  who  was  baptised 
at  Eyam  in  April,  1744.  In  the  year  1754,  the  family 
removed  to  the  Bishop's  palace  at  Lichfield,  which  became 
their  life-long  home;  but  Anne,  or  Anna  as  she  called 
herself,  the  "  Nancy "  of  her  parents'  fireside,  frequently 
accompanied  in  after  years  the  sojournings  of  her  father  at 
Eyam  ;  of  which  he  continued  the  incumbent  for  a  period 
of  fifty  years.  Her  apprehension  being  quick,  and  her 
memory  retentive,  her  father  took  pleasure  in  teaching 
her  to  recite  passages  from  the  works  of  Shakspeare  and 
Milton.  These  authors,  Dryden  and  Pope,  Prior  and 
Young,  were  the  first  with  whose  poetry  she  became  con- 
versant; and  the  four  last  exercised  a  durable  influence 
upon  her  mind.  Before  she  had  attained  the  age  of  ten 
years,  she  manifested  her  imitative  faculty  in  verse,  and 
diligently  availed  herself  of  every  opportunity  of  gratifying 
her  thirst  for  knowledge.  The  avidity  with  which,  in 
succeeding  years,  she  received  her  father's  instructions, 
excited  his  fears  lest  his  beautiful  girl  should  grow  up 
a  learned  woman,  he  therefore  prohibited  poetry  and 
scholastic  studies.  With  affectionate  submission  to  his  will, 
Anna  ceased  from  her  favourite  pursuits,  and  diligently 
applied  herself  to  strictly  feminine  accomplishments,  in 
which,  and  more  especially  in  ornamental  needlework,  she 
attained  great  proficiency. 

A  still  harder  trial  attended  her  youth ;  and  her  self- 
government,  strong  principles  of  duty,  and  filial  attach- 
ment enabled  her  so  to  triumph  over  the  temptations  of  a 
first  love,  in  spite  of  her  impetuous  temper,  that  the 


I.  IT  Kit  AH  Y    WOMEN    OF    KM  J  I.  AND.  241 

of  her  parents  henceforth  increased  their  affection 
for  her,  and  won  them  to  withdraw  the  prohibition  against 
literature.  The  clergy  of  the  cathedral,  who  were  her 
father's  friends  and  visitors,  took  almost  paternal  pride 
and  pleasure  in  her  abilities ;  and  she  renewed  her  studies, 
aided  by  them  and  by  Dr.  Darwin,  not  merely  without 
further  impediment,  but  with  perhaps  too  strong  an 
impulsion  of  uniform  applause. 

Mr.  Eichard  Lovel  Edgeworth  has  insinuated  in  his 
Autobiography  that  Miss  Seward  had  been  the  rival  of 
the  first  Mrs.  Darwin  for  the  doctor's  addresses.  This  is 
effectually  contradicted  by  the  fact  that  Dr.  Darwin  married 
Miss  Howard  of  the  Close,  Lichfield,  in  the  year  1757, 
when  Anna  Seward  was  only  fifteen  years  of  age. 

Her  early  letters,  1762-8,  in  the  collection  edited  by 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  are  published  in  a  curtailed  form :  all 
of  them  are  entertaining,  and  some  of  them  deeply 
interesting :  the  style  is  neither  inverted  nor  affected,  and 
many  original  remarks  which  they  contain  are  pertinent, 
penetrating,  and  sagacious. 

In  her  literary  criticisms,  there  is  always  some  isolated 
remark  or  other  which  indicates  acute  discrimination ;  but 
prepossession  and  prejudice  had  so  perverted  her  reasoning 
powers,  that  her  judgment  can  never  be  relied  upon  in 
balancing  the  merits  and  demerits  of  any  particular  book, 
or  in  comparing  the  compositions  of  one  author  with  those 
of  another.  In  proof  of  this  assertion  may  be  cited  her 
preference  of  the  '  Caractacus '  and  the  '  Elfrida '  of  Mason 
to  the  '  Samson  Agonistes '  of  Milton. 

She  reckoned  among  her  friends  almost  all  the  poets 
and  rhymers  of  her  times,  and  she  regarded  them  all  with 
such  affectionate  partiality  as  to  lavish  commendation  and 
real  admiration  upon  all  their  productions  whether  good, 

R 


242  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

indifferent,  or  contemptible.  She  disliked  Dr.  Johnson  for 
his  despotic  manners,  and  Richard  Lovel  Edgeworth  for 
his  opposing  self-conceit;  but  her  antipathies  were  few, 
and  her  friendships  numerous,  generous,  and  enthusiastic. 
Contemporary  merit  never  failed  to  obtain  her  applause, 
and  she  was  ever  ready  to  assist  necessitous  authors  both 
with  her  influence  and  with  her  purse. 

In  1764,  her  sister  Sarah  having  entered  into  a 
matrimonial  engagement  with  Mr.  Porter,  a  merchant  of 
Leghorn,  the  step-son  of  Dr.  Johnson,  Anna  Seward  had 
promised  to  accompany  them  to  Italy,  and  was  employed 
in  preparations  for  the  wedding  and  the  journey,  when  the 
betrothed  bride  was  suddenly  seized  with  a  fever,  which 
terminated  her  life  in  a  few  days.  Under  this  affliction, 
Anna  Seward's  warmth  of  heart  enabled  her  to  afford 
great  consolation  to  her  bereaved  parents,  while  she  was 
herself  upheld  by  the  assiduous  and  tender  cares  of  the 
young  Honora  Sneyd.  Time  having  softened  the  grief  of 
Mr.  Porter,  he  gradually  transferred  his  affection  to  the 
surviving  sister,  whose  conversation  was  his  best  resource 
and  solace ;  but  Anna  Seward  rejected  his  addresses,  and 
knowing  her  society  to  be  indispensable  to  her  parents' 
happiness,  resolved  never  to  leave  them.  For  their  sakes, 
in  subsequent  years,  she  refused  many  advantageous  offers 
of  marriage ;  contenting  herself  with  the  triumphs  which 
her  beauty,  her  talents,  and  her  spirit  of  ascendancy, 
enabled  her  to  obtain  in  local  society ;  and  with  the  public 
celebrity  acquired  by  her  writings  while  verifying  the 
remark  of  Madame  de  Stae'l :  "  Le  genie  poetique  est  une 
disposition  interieure,  de  la  meme  nature  que  celle  qui 
rend  capable  d'un  genereux  sacrifice."*  (Poetic  genius 
is  an  internal  disposition  of  the  same  nature  as  that 

*  L'Allemagne  :  '  De  la  Po&ie.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLANh.  243 

\vliidi  renders  one  capable  of  a  generous  sacrifice.)  In 
the  case  of  Miss  Seward,  however,  the  word  feeling  would 
be  more  appropriate  than  genius. 

In  the  year  1778,  Anne,  Countess  of  Northesk,  wife  of 
George  the  sixth  Earl,  was  led  by  the  medical  reputation 
of  Dr.  Darwin  to  sojourn  for  some  time  at  Lichfield.  She 
was  suffering  from  a  dangerous  malady  which  had  baffled 
the  skill  of  all  the  most  celebrated  physicians  in  London ; 
and  Dr.  Darwin's  acuteness  and  ingenuity  were  stimulated 
to  the  utmost  by  the  desire  to  prolong  the  life  of  a  most 
amiable  woman,  and  to  obtain  a  triumph  over  his  pro- 
fessional brethren.  At  his  request,  the  Countess  and  one 
of  her  daughters,  who  had  accompanied  her  to  Lichfield, 
became  inmates  of  his  house,  where  they  received  the 
most  judicious  and  kind  attentions  from  Mrs.  Darwin,  and 
from  her  intimate  friend  Miss  Seward,  whose  humane 
feelings  were  deeply  touched  by  the  imminent  peril  of  a 
life  so  precious  to  a  husband  and  a  large  family  of  children. 
The  engaging  manners  of  the  Countess,  and  her  gratitude 
for  Anna  Seward's  devoting  her  time  and  talents  to  the 
solace  of  her  sufferings,  increased  to  enthusiasm  the 
sympathy  of  the  poetess,  One  day,  in  speaking  of  the 
invalid,  Dr.  Darwin  said  that  a  thought  had  occurred  to 
him,  that  the  operation  of  the  transfusion  of  blood  into 
her  veins  from  those  of  a  healthy  human  being  might 
probably  conduce  to  her  cure.  Anna  Seward,  in  perfect 
health  and  the  prime  of  life,  instantly  volunteered  to  be 
bled  for  the  supply. 

Inability  to  obtain  mechanical  instruments  of  sufficient 
delicacy  caused  the  Doctor  to  relinquish  the  project ;  but 
the  Countess,  deeply  affected  by  the  offered  self-sacrifice 
of  her  friend,  repaid  her  generous  intention  with  affectionate 
attachment.  By  other  means,  Dr.  Darwin  succeeded  in 

B2 


244  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

restoring  her  health;  Lady  Northesk  returned  to  her 
happy  home  in  Scotland,  and  soon  sent  Miss  Seward  a  set 
of  fine  pebbles  as  a  present.  They  continued  to  correspond 
by  letter  during  the  few  remaining  years  of  the  Countess's 
life,  which  was  unfortunately  terminated  by  an  accident : 
her  clothes  caught  fire,  and  thus  she  perished.  It  would 
appear  that  after  the  death  of  her  sister,  and  the  alienating 
marriage  of  Honora  Sneyd,  Anna  Seward  had  no  other 
confidential  friend  than  her  parents.  She  consequently 
formed  the  habit  of  making  her  poems  the  depositaries 
of  her  best  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  of  diffusing  her 
opinions  in  letters.  The  admiration  bestowed  upon  her 
verses  in  society  encouraged  her  to  venture  upon  the 
publication  of  some  of  them  in  the  Magazines.  The 
*  Elegy  on  Captain  Cook,'  who  was  massacred  at  Owhyhee 
on  Valentine's-day  in  the  year  1779,  has  real  and  perma- 
nent interest,  conveys  much  historic  truth,  some  very 
curious  information,  and  a  great  deal  of  humane  and 
amiable  sentiment,  in  harmonious  verse.  A  redundance 
of  glittering  ornaments  and  an  absurd  excess  of  personifica- 
tion spoil  the  effect,  for  even — 

"  Shipwreck  guards  the  laud  !  " 

The  '  Monody  on  Major  Andre,'  who  died  heroically  a 
traitor's  death  at  Tappan,  October  2,  1780,  possesses 
sufficient  merit  to  account  for  its  having  been  adopted  as 
the  expression  of  a  nation's  grief,  at  a  period  when  the 
whole  British  army  wore  mourning  for  -  his  death,  and 
all  Europe  deplored  and  stigmatized  his  fate.  Miss 
Seward  had  known  him  when  a  boy,  and  personal  regret 
gave  earnestness  to  -her  poem:  for  he  was  the  lover  of 
the  beautiful  Honora  Sneyd,  who  was  brought  up  by 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  .Seward,  and  fondly  regarded  by  their 


I.ITKKAKY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  245 

daughters.  One  of  the  best  couplets  relates  to  the  French 
people,  who,  under  their  King  Louis  XVI.,  encouraged 
the  revolt  of  the  Anglo-American  States : — 

"  Unnatural  compact !     Shall  a  race  of  slaves 
Sustain  the  ponderous  standard  Freedom  waves?" 

The  incessant  and  indiscriminating  use  of  personification 
deforms  and  spoils  the  Monody.  Thus  certain  spectators— 

"  Through  rolling  years,  saw  undecisive  War 
Drag  bleeding  Wisdom  at  his  iron  car !  " 

In  1780,  Mrs.  Seward  died.  She  was  a  kind-hearted, 
common-place  person,  who  acquitted  herself  blamelessly 
of  her  domestic  duties,  and  enforced  the  observance  of  all 
ordinary  proprieties  and  ceremonies,  attending  with  equal 
punctuality  the  cathedral  services  and  the  card-parties  of 
her  neighbours,  and  duly  holding  assemblies  and  practising 
hospitality  in  her  turn.  Anna's  chief  attachment  had 
ever  been  to  her  father,  whom  she  accompanied  in  all  his 
little  migrations  and  visits.  The  shock  of  his  wife's  death 
brought  on  a  paralytic  disorder,  which  in  the  course  of 
time  impaired  his  intellects,  and  gradually  reduced  him  to 
a  condition  of  infantine  weakness  both  of  mind  and  body. 

Lady  Millar  of  Batheaston  died  in  July,  1781.  For 
nearly  six  previous  years  she  had,  during  the  Bath  season, 
held  an  assembly  once  a  fortnight,  proposing  to  the 
company  on  each  of  these  occasions  subjects  for  poems  to 
be  read  at  the  next  meeting.  The  contributions  were 
deposited  in  an  "  antique  Etruscan  vase,"  and  taken  out 
by  three  appointed  gentlemen,  who  read  them  aloud,  and 
decided  on  their  comparative  merits ;  three  myrtle  garlands 
being  the  rewards  of  the  three  competitors  whose  poems 
were  preferred.  Once  every  year  a  volume  of  these  prize 
poems  was  published  for  the  benefit  of  a  charitable  institu- 
tion in  the  neighbourhood,  and  four  volumes  had  appeared 


246  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

when  Lady  Millar's  death,  in  the  prime  of  her  days,  put 
an  end  to  the  series.  Among  the  competitors  in  these 
Batheaston  games  were  Sir  Brooke  Boothby ;  Potter,  the 
translator  of  '.ZEschylus ;'  Edward  Jerningham,  author  of 
'  The  Nun,'  '  Funeral  of  Ariber,'  &c. ;  Anstey,  author  of 
<  The  Bath  Guide  ;'  Hayley,  author  of  '  The  Triumphs  of 
Temper ;'  Graves,  author  of  '  The  Spiritual  Quixote ;'  Dr. 
Whalley,  and  many  other  celebrated  writers,  besides  Miss 
Seward,  who  was  repeatedly  crowned  with  the  choicest  of  the 
wreaths  of  victory.  She  wrote  a  poem,  '  To  the  Memory 
of  Lady  Millar,'  expressive  of  real  and  affectionate  regret. 

Her  favourite  signature  to  her  sentimental  and  critical 
epistles  and  to  her  fugitive  poems  was  "  Julia." 

The  author  of  the  present  notice  recollects  to  have  met 
with  many  of  her  pieces,  years  ago,  in  'The  Universal 
Magazine/  which  are  not  reprinted  in  the  posthumous 
collection,  especially  one  beginning — 

"  Oh,  lend  your  wings,  ye  favouring  gales,"  &c. 

In  1782,  she  published  her  '  Louisa,'  a  poetical  novel  in 
four  epistles,  which  was  well  received  by  the  public,  and 
speedily  passed  through  repeated  editions.  The  story  is 
interesting,  the  death  of  Emira  deeply  pathetic ;  and  the 
power  of  that  writer  must  not  be  disputed  who  can  at 
will  touch  our  hearts  and  call  forth  our  tears.  The  style 
is  free  from  any  unusual  inversions ;  and  passages  of  great 
beauty  and  feeling  show,  that  under  more  favourable 
auspices,  Anna  Seward  might  have  avoided  those  faults 
which  have  sullied  her  literary  fame.  For  instance  : — 

"  No  grief  my  bosom  at  our  parting  knew 
But  that  of  bidding  thee  a  long  adieu, 
And  the  sweet  tears  that  such  soft  sorrows  bring 
Fall  as  light  rain-drops  in  the  sunny  spring."  * 


Ep.  i.,  p.  225. 


I.ITKKAKY  WOMKN  OF  ENGLAND.  247 

And— 

"  Faint  in  the  yellow  broom  the  oxen  lay, 
And  the  mute  birds  sat  languid  on  the  spray, 
And  nought  was  hcnrd  around  the  noontide  bower, 
Save  that  the  mountain-bee  from  flower  to  flower 
Seemed  to  prolong,  with  her  assiduous  wing, 
The  soft  vibration  of  the  tuneful  string."  * 

Again— 

"  The  plenteous  dews  that  in  the  early  ray 
Gem  the  light  leaf  and  tremble  on  the  spray, 
The  fresh,  cool,  ^ales  that  undulating  pass 
With  shadowy  sweep  along  the  bending  grass."  f 

Of  lines  such  as  these,  no  British  poet  of  any  period  need 
be  ashamed. 

In  the  year  1790,  her  ten  years  of  unremitting  watch- 
fulness and  tender  assiduity  terminated  in  the  death  of  her 
fond  father,  from  whom  she  inherited  a  handsome  fortune. 
He  was  buried  at  Lichfield  on  the  4th  of  March.  1790. 
The  episcopal  palace  of  that  city  continued  to  be  her  home 
through  life,  but  having  now  lost  the  chief  object  of  her 
affectionate  solicitude,  she  gave  more  time  to  her  friends, 
and  frequently  spent  weeks  and  months  at  their  houses. 
So  genuine  was  her  love  of  literature,  that  she  loved  all 
literary  aspirants,  and  without  jealousy,  envy,  or  any  of 
those  mean  and  invidious  feelings  which  too  often  attend 
upon  personal  vanity,  was  ever  ready  to  applaud  with 
zealous  partiality  the  works  of  her  contemporaries. 

In  the  year  1791,  she  stayed  for  some  time  at  Cowslip 
Green  with  Hannah  More  and  her  admirable  sisters, 
and  after  her  departure,  enthusiastically  eulogised  her 
hostesses — 

"  The  virgin  train, 

Led  by  the  boast  of  Britain's  tuneful  plain, 
Where  genius  oft  has  fed  its  kindling  fires, 
Kolled  the  rapt  rye,  and  struck  the  golden  wires, 


KI>.  i.,  p.  22G.  t  Ibid.,  p.  272. 


248  LITER  AIfY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

Bristol,  that  hears  her  More's  distinguished  name 
Wafted  by  echoes  round  the  shrine  of  fame. 
On  whose  mild  brow  she  sees  bright  laurels  twine, 
Culled  from  their  choicest  bowers  by  all  the  Nine, 
Enwreathed  with  charity's  assuasive  balm, 
And  faith  and  virtue's  never-dying  palm." 

Her  visits  to  Hayley  at  Eartliam  in  Sussex,  to  the 
Granvilles  at  Calwich,  and  to  other  friends  at  Buxton, 
Shrewsbury,  Bath,  Colton,  and  various  places,  are  likewise 
celebrated  in  verse.  Her  repeated  sojourns  at  Llangollen 
with  Lady  Eleanor  Butler  and  Miss  Ponsoiiby  are  also 
commemorated — 

"  Oh  Cambrian  Tempe  !  oft  with  transport  hailed, 
I  leave  thee  now,  as  I  did  ever  leave 
Thee  and  thy  peerless  mistresses,"  &c. 

There  are  other  reminiscences  of  Llangollen  which  prove 
how  justly  she  had  appreciated  the  extraordinary  beauty 
of  its  scenery,  even  to  the  most  minute  features. 

In  her  '  Epistle  to  Cornelia/  the  versified  description  of 
the  faithfulness  of  even  a  betrayed  woman's  love,  derived 
from  the  study  of  Hogarth's  '  Rake's  Progress,'  reveals  the 
kindly  sympathy  and  the  depth  of  feminine  tenderness 
which  possessed  the  inmost  heart  of  Anna  Seward. 

In  1799,  she  published  her  '  Sonnets,'  ^  which  afford 
creditable  specimens  of  her  skill  in  metre,  rhythm,  and 
rhyme.  These  are  republished  among  l  The  Poetical 
Works  of  Anna  Seward,  with  Extracts  from  her  Literary 
Correspondence,  and  a  Biographical  Preface,'  by  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  in  three  volumes,  which  he  edited  in  1810.  Good 
sense,  right  sentiments,  and  extensive  knowledge  are  mani- 
fested in  almost  all  her  verses.  The  numerous  pieces  which 
express  her  personal  thoughts  and  feelings  upon  present 
scenes  and  passing  events  have  all  more  or  less  of  that 
quiet  truth  which  insures  human  sympathy.  She  observes 
and  copies  objects  with  exactness,  but  her  poetical  pictures. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         -Ml) 

like  those  of  the  modem  process  called  Nature-printing, 
are  usually  flattened,  and  blurred,  and  have  life  and  elasti- 
city crushed  out  of  them.  There  is  no  artistic  genius  to 
reimbue  them  with  vitality.  She  is  earnest,  but  she  wants 
originality  and  energy,  and  attempts  to  atone  for  the  de- 
ficiency by  artificial  inflation.  Many  of  her  poems  have 
the  air  of  drawing-room  compositions,  shaped  for  momen- 
tary effect  upon  ascertained  characters.  In  all  her  various 
subjects,  and  her  different  forms  of  treating  them,  there 
may  perhaps  be  detected  the  style  of  some  poet,  whose 
tune,  having  caught,  she  plays  with  ingenious  variations. 
An  instance  of  her  imitative  cleverness  may  be  found  in 
*  Auld  Willie's  Farewell,'  vol.  iii.,  p.  358. 

Ranked  fairly  among  the  British  poets  of  her  generation, 
her  place  would  be  between  Mason  and  Hayley.  Alike  in 
society  and  in  literature,  she  sought  too  much  for  admira- 
tion, and  came  before  an  assembly  of  friends,  and  before 
the  public,  in  person  and  in  print,  dressed  to  perform  a 
part,  ever  mindful  of  stage  effect,  and  of— 

"  The  tiara  and  the  glittering  zone." 

It  is  easy  to  ridicule  .and  despise  the  affectation  of  Miss 
Seward,  but  let  the  satirist  remember  that  with  her  the 
vanity  which  prompted  it  was  a  fault  of  the  surface :  an 
affectionate,  faithful,  and  generous  heart  beat  below  it. 
Her  principles  of  duty  were  well  defined  ;  her  virtues  were 
sincere.  On  the  contrary,  simulation  and  dissimulation, 
in  the  present  day  usually  indicate  deception  to  be  the 
prevalent  and  pervading  vice  of  educated  women  of  the 
world.  Their  vanity  is  not  merely  an  absurd  foible,  but 
the  visible  emanation  of  deep  internal  falsehood.  They 
act  a  part  so  incessantly,  that  after  a  few  years'  practice, 
thev  know  little  more  of  their  own  real  selves  than  their 


250  LITEBAEY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

associates  do.  Their  conduct  has  no  basis  in  truthful  and 
consistent  principle ;  to  produce  a  present  effect  is  their 
one  object  through  all  circumstances ;  they  live  as  it  were 
on  the  stage  and  before  an  audience. 

With  the  unpractised,  feeble,  and  careless,  a  principal 
fault  of  style,  whether  written  or  conversational,  is  that  of 
so  misarranging  words  as  to  excite,  in  the  first  clause  of  a 
sentence,  a  false  impression  of  the  subsequent  matter. 
This  occasions  mental  fatigue  to  the  recipient,  who  is 
tasked  with  the  correction  of  his  own  first  notions,  and 
with  the  rectification  of  the  author's  statements,  by  the 
rule  of  natural  order  and  precedency.  Just  as  in  advancing 
towards  an  object  of  sight,  its  lineaments  and  tints  are 
gradually  discerned,  so,  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
should  the  words  of  a  sentence  lead  on  to  a  correct  appre- 
hension of  the  meaning,  in  a  true,  exact,  and  well  de- 
veloped exposition  of  time,  cause,  and  effect.  On  the  same 
principle,  if  surprise  is  intended,  the  words  must  purposely 
be  so  placed  as  to  produce  the  sensation  of  sudden  behold- 
ing. Too  much  care  cannot  be  spent  in  fitting  apt  words 
to  apt  thoughts,  or  in  rendering  language  truthful  and  clear. 
When,  on  the  contrary,  instead  of  studying  to  form  an 
orderly  verbal  medium  for  information,  a  writer  or  speaker 
endeavours  to  make  the  mere  vehicle  the  chief  object  of 
interest,  and  incessantly  obtrudes  its  artificial  construction 
and  fantastic  decorations,  then  the  proper  use  of  syntax  is 
abused,  and  the  rude,  natural  utterance  of  the  ignorant 
may  justly  be  preferred  to  such  perverse  ingenuity.  Our 
own  Elizabethan  era,  rich  in  literature  which  forms  a 
treasure  for  all  times,  produced  redundant  instances  of 
affectation  in  the  structure  of  language,  and  in  the  dainty 
and  pedantic  selection  of  words. 

The  beautiful  and  accomplished  Frenchwomen,  who  "  on 


UTKHAKY    WOMEN   OP    ENGLAND.  251 

tliis  side  the  Alps  united  the  aristocracy  of  rank  and  of 
uciiius  in  one  circle,*4  sent  forth,  from  the  Hotel  de  Ram- 
bouillet,  at  Paris,  that  ormolu  phoenix,  vivified  with  wit, 
which  dazzled  the  eyes,  spoiled  the  taste,  and  vitiated  the 
style  of  some  of  the  best  contemporary  and  subsequent 
writers  in  Europe.  The  shafts  of  Moliere  in  '  La  Critique 
de  1'Ecole  des  Femmes,'  'Les  Femmes  Savantes,'  *Les 
Precieuses  Ridicules/  &c.  &c.,  wounded  individuals,  and 
exposed  the  artificial-romantic  nature  of  their  conceit ;  but 
the  mechanism  had  tough  capabilities  of  resistance,  and 
could  only  be  destroyed  by  time  and  use. 

The  decline  of  true  taste  in  Italy  in  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century  had  greatly  influenced  European 
literature.  In  1613,  the  Academicians  of  Florence  pub- 
lished their  exclusively  Tuscan  '  Vocabolario  della  Crusca,' 
intending  to  reform  the  prevalent  rudeness  of  expression, 
but  falling  unfortunately  into  an  opposite  extreme,  of 
pedantic  and  harmonious  affectation. 

Thus  might  sufficient  precedents  be  found  in  England, 
France,  and  Italy  for  the  Darwinian  exaggeration  of  the 
artificial  style  in  poetry ;  but  bad  taste  is  of  native  growth 
in  every  soil,  and  bad  example  is  everywhere  seductive. 

The  Louis  Quatorze  style  in  English  poetry  had  attained 
its  perfection  in  Pope.  His  conciseness  and  strength, 
correctness  and  perspicuity,  elegance,  brilliancy  and 
harmony  remain  unsurpassed  and  unsurpassable.  Most  of 
his  imitators  fell,  for  want  of  genius,  into  feebleness  or 
utter  inanity.  Dr.  Darwin  brought  to  bear  upon  poetry 
the  acuteness,  subtlety,  and  strength  of  a  mind  which 
delighted  in  physical  and  mechanical  science.  An  excess 
of  wrought  ornament  encumbered  his  diction  which,  in- 
capable of  elevation,  sought  distinction  in  oddity  and 
inversion.  The  soft  unisons  of  well  chosen  sounds  which 


252  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

gave  their  charm  to  the  verses  of  Pope,  were  broken  by 
Darwin,  and  overpowered  by  the  tinkle,  clangour,  and 
braying  of  brass  instruments.  What  was  firm  in  Pope, 
became  hard  in  him,  while  Pope's  well  studied  graces  were 
superseded  by  mechanical  evolutions  or  mountebank  dis- 
tortions. The  example  of  her  admired  friend  confirmed 
the  tendencies  of  Anna  Seward,  -and  Pope,  with  a  Dar- 
winian difference,  became  her  master  and  her  model. 

The  letters  of  Pope  undoubtedly  furnished  the  direct 
models  of  her  elaborate  and  ostentatious  epistolary  style. 
In  power,  and  in  almost  every  good  point,  her  poetry  is 
inferior  to  Dr.  Darwin's ;  in  pathos,  however,  it  possesses 
an  element  of  interest  wholly  wanting  in  his.  Affected 
persons  are  always  imitative ;  and  no  doubt  the  influx  of 
Delia  Cruscan  votaries  with  their  fantastic  and  euphu- 
istic  importations,  encouraged  her,  in  emulation  of  their 
performances,  to  still  greater  extravagances  of  verbal 
folly. 

Dr.  Erasmus  Darwin,  who,  on  his  second  marriage,  had 
removed  his  place  of  residence  from  Lichfield  to  Derby, 
died  early  in  the  year  1802  :  Miss  Seward  had  conse- 
quently seen  little  of  him  for  the  last  twenty  years  of  his 
life  ;  but  one  of  his  sons,  having  applied  to  her  for  anecdotes 
of  his  father,  with  the  intention  of  preparing  a  memoir, 
she  found  that  her  reminiscences  would  not  be  altogether 
suitable  for  filial  use,  and  consequently  resolved  to  publish 
them  herself. 

The  so-called  '  Life  of  Dr.  Darwin '  is  not  properly  a 
biography :  it  gives  no  consecutive  account  of  the  events 
of  his  career,  no  record  of  his  mental  acquirements,  no 
insight  of  his  principles  and  motives,  no  well-considered 
estimate  of  his  abilities,  no  trustworthy  impression  of  his 
general  character.  It  shows  that  she  had  never  penetrated 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

beyond  that  superficial  pellicle  which  is  opaque  to  all  but 
deep  thinking  investigators  of  their  own  hearts.  Any 
ordinary  person,  with  the  same  opportunities  of  intercourse, 
might  have  given  as  .good  a  sketch  of  his  personal  appear- 
ance, conversation,  and  occasional  doings.  Extracts  from 
'  The  Botanic  Garden/  and  her  crude  criticisms  upon  them, 
make  up  the  greater  part  of  the  book ;  the  last  page  of 
which  is  dated  "Lichfield,  April  13,  1803,"  an  era  perni- 
cious and  withering  to  Miss  Seward's  literary  reputation : 
for  all  her  other  works  have  passed  into  obscurity,  while 
that,  the  worst  of  all  her  productions,  remains  a  conspicuous 
target  for  the  shafts  of  successive  generations  of  critics. 

It  is  as  unfair  to  judge  of  her  by  this  work  as  it  would 
be  to  estimate  the  literary  character  of  Madame  D'Arblay 
from  her  *  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Burney,'  written,  as  Lord 
Macaulay  has  remarked,  in  "  the  worst  style  that  has  ever 
been  known  among  men."  "  No  genius,  no  information, 
could  save  from  proscription  a  book  so  written,"  adds  the 
same  brilliant  reviewer;  forgetting  for  the  instant,  the 
rival  badness  of  style  in  Miss  Seward's  Life  of  Dr.  Darwin, 
and  its  unhappy  tenacity  of  fame.  This  book  is  not  merely 
inelegant,  pedantic,  and  replete  with  affectation,  it  is  abso- 
lutely and  daringly  ungrammatical.  Most  of  the  words 
are  English,  but  the  structure  of  the  sentences  belongs  to 
no  language  living  or  dead.  She  misapplies  epithets,  vio- 
lates idioms,  practises  every  possible  form  of  inversion  and 
contortion,  and  leads  the  reader  to  forget  the  subject  in 
contemptuous  abhorrence  of  its  medium.  Sometimes  all 
this  mischief  is  elaborately  done ;  at  others,  by  apparent 
inadvertence,  she  commences  a  sentence  so  awkwardly  that 
no  subsequent  inflection  can  bring  it  to  a  proper  close.  As 
the  climax  to  all  censures  upon  the  style  of  this  amusing 
book,  it  may  be  justly  characterized  as  unnatural. 


254  XITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  sketch  of  the  author  of  *  Sandford  and  Merton,' 
Thomas  Day,  once  a  resident  in  the  city  of  Lichfield,  and 
a  lover  of  Honora  Sneyd,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
parts  of  this  work. 

Anna  Seward  was  not  a  woman  who  could  possibly 
outlive  all  her  friends,  for  every  new  candidate  for  poetic 
fame  was  a  recruit  to  the  time-thinned  ranks.  The  latter 
years  of  her  life  were  gladdened  by  the  personal  acquaint- 
ance of  Kobert  Sou  they  and  Walter  Scott.  The  former 
was  rather  repelled  by  the  ceremonious  formality  of  her 
address,  and  by  the  studied  compliments  she  paid  him. 
The  latter,  more  accustomed  to  society,  and  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  varieties  of  human  nature,  first  saw  her 
in  1807,  and  has  left  a  written  record  of  his  sentiments  in 
some  passages  of  his  '  Biographical  Preface,'  where  he 


"  This  may  be  no  improper  place  to  mention  the  impres- 
sion which  her  appearance  and  conversation  were  calcu- 
lated to  make  upon  a  stranger.  They  were  indeed  well 
worth  a  longer  pilgrimage.  Miss  Seward  when  young 
must  have  been  exquisitely  beautiful,  for  in  advanced  age, 
the  regularity  of  her  features,  the  fire  and  expression  of  her 
countenance,  gave  her  the  appearance  of  beauty  and  almost 
of  youth.  Her  eyes  were  auburn,  of  the  precise  shade  and 
hue  of  her  hair,  and  possessed  great  expression.  In  re- 
citing, or  speaking  with  animation  they  appeared  to  become 
darker  and  as  it  were  to  flash  fire.  I  should  have  hesitated 
to  state  the  impression  which  this  peculiarity  made  upon 
me  at  the  time,  had  not  my  observation  been  confirmed  by 
that  of  the  first  actress  of  this  or  any  other  age,*  with 
whom  I  lately  happened  to  converse  on  our  deceased 
friend's  expressive  powers  of  countenance.  Miss  Se ward's 

*  Mrs.  Siddons. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         255 

tone  of  voice  was  melodious,  guided  by  excellent  taste,  and 
uvll  suited  to  reading  and  recitation,  in  which  she  willingly 
exercised  it." 

He  adds :  "  The  great  command  of  literary  anecdote 
which  Miss  Seward  possessed,  her  ready  perception  both 
of  the  serious  and  ludicrous,  and  her  just  observation  and 
original  taste,  rendered  her  society  delightful."  Among 
her  other  accomplishments,  Sir  Walter  eulogizes  the  re- 
markable distinctness  and  beauty  of  her  hand-writing. 

In  the  autumn  of  1807,  she  was  attacked  by  an  eruptive 
and  remittent  fever  ;  and  being  lowered  by  frequent  blood- 
letting, intended  for  its  cure,  her  fine  constitution  gave 
way,  and  she  expired  on  Thursday  the  23rd  of  March,  1809, 
aged  sixty-six  years  and  three  months.  Her  two  last 
letters  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  are  simple,  grave,  and  self- 
possessed,  in  the  prospect  of  immediate  death. 

The  bulk  of  her  literary  correspondence  was  bequeathed 
by  her  to  Constable  of  Edinburgh,  who  published  it  in  six 
volumes.  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  her  literary  executor. 

MARY  TIGHE. 

Mary,  daughter  of  the  Kev.  William  Blachford,  was 
born  in  the  city  of  Dublin  in  the  year  1773.  Her  father 
died  of  a  very  short  illness,  a  few  months  after  her  birth ; 
and  she  was  entirely  indebted  to  her  excellent  mother  for 
an  education  which  added  to  every  usual  accomplishment 
of  a  gentlewoman,  an  acquaintance  with  the  languages  of 
ancient  Greece  and  Rome.  With  their  literature  she 
made  herself  conversant,  not  neglecting  that  of  modern 
Europe,  and  studying  more  especially  English  poetry  and 
the  writings  of  Edmund  Spenser. 

In  1793,  she  married  her  cousin,  Henry  Tighe,  Esq.,  of 
Woodstock,  Kilkenny,  the  historian  of  that  county,  and  its 


256  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

representative  in  the  Irish  House  of  Commons,  a  man  of 
highly-cultivated  mind  and  a  Latin  poet.  It  is  incidentally 
recorded  that  she  possessed  "  strong  feelings  and  amiable 
affections ;"  and  it  may  be  inferred  from  her  writings,  that 
this  lovely  woman  had  made  herself  into  an  idol  of  de- 
light and  admiration  both  in  domestic  and  social  life,  and 
rejoiced  in  the  sunshine  which  genius  shed  around  her. 
Consumptive  malady  was  in  her  family :  her  health  was 
always  delicate,  and  her  spirits  variable  ;  and  when,  in  the 
year  1804,  she  experienced  a  severe  attack  of  illness,  her 
heart  quailed  in  its  pleasant  course  of  worldly  prosperity, 
and  recognized  with  horror  the  inevitable  approach  of 
early  death. 

Her  feelings  had  often  before  found  expression  in  poetry, 
and  now  she  had  recourse  to  it  to  solace  her  painful  re- 
grets and  to  beguile  her  gloomy  apprehensions.  Under 
these  circumstances  '  Psyche,'  her  beautiful  epic,  appears 
to  have  been  composed.  It  was  printed  in  1805,  with  a 
dedicatory  sonnet  to  her  mother,  acknowledging 

"  Affection's  soothing  voice, 
That  eloquence  of  tenderness  expressed, 
Which  still  my  grateful  voice  confessed  divine," 

as  having  instructed  her  to  love,  and  thus  enabled  her  to 
write  love's  legend.  The  first  edition  was  wholly  distri- 
buted among  her  private  friends,  and  obtained  such  a 
tribute  of  cordial  and  critical  praise,  that  Mrs.  Tighe  was 
prevailed  upon  to  allow  a  second  edition  to  be  published. 
The  profits  of  the  sale  were  applied  to  building  a  wing  to 
the  Orphan  Asylum  at  Wicklow,  since  called  the  Psyche 
Ward.  It  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  finest  poems  ever 
written  by  a  woman ;  full  of  imaginative  power,  passion, 
and  melody.  The  stanza  is  Spenserian,  and  the  main  plan 
of  the  story,  the  ideal  palaces,  the  long  journey,  the  scenes 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  257 

passed  through,  and  the  beings  encountered,  are  all  con- 
ceived and  described  after  the  manner  of  '  The  Fairy 
Queen.'  Her  one  great  fault  in  the  construction  of  the 
plan  is,  that  although  particular  incidents  are  strictly  alle- 
gorical, the  whole,  taken  from  beginning  to  end,  is  not  so, 
the  narrative  in  the  two  first  cantoes  having  no  secondary 
sense. 

Those  two  first  cantoes  are  conceived  in  the  spirit  of 
an  ancient  Greek  who  had  visited  Persia.  They  are 
wrought  out  as  if  by  a  luxurious  Fatima,  who,  in  the 
absence  of  her  adored  Pacha,  reclining  after  a  luscious 
repast,  gorgeously  attired  and  decked  with  gems  of  in- 
estimable price,  cheered  by  the  soft-falling  fountain-spray, 
stimulated  by  the  fragrance  of  jessamine,  and  soothed 
by  the  steam  of  her  hookah,  cast  her  eyes  on  a  rare  in- 
taglio in  her  pendant  tresses,  and  languidly  exercised  her 
Oriental  imagination  by  investing  its  fable  with  the  volup- 
tuous accessories  of  a  Mahometan  paradise ;  gently  shud- 
dering the  while  at  the  unexperienced  and  enhancing 
contrast  of  forlorn  desertion,  hardship,  and  privation.  The 
descriptions  of  Vanity  and  Flattery  in  the  third  canto,  of 
Suspicion  in  the  fourth,  of  Patience  in  the  fifth,  and  of  the 
Castle  of  Indifference  in  the  sixth,  are  worthy  of  Spenser 
himself. 

The  subject  of  the  poem  is  the  soul's  probationary 
course,  represented  under  the  figure  of  Psyche.  The 
leisurely  feet  of  the  Italian  stanza  accord  with  the  prolix 
and  diffuse  style  of  narration,  and  give  to  the  whole  a 
soft  and  dream-like  air.  The  sentiments  are  pure  and 
tender;  the  descriptions  true  to  nature  and  to  feeling; 
and  whether  they  depict  the  emotions  of  the  heart,  scenery 
wild  and  cultivated,  the  mythological  legends  of  Greece, 
storms  or  fair  weather,  or  the  passage  of  a  ship  through  the 

s 


258  LITEKAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

waves,  there  is  a  fulness  of  knowledge,  an  accuracy  of  detail, 
a  distinctness  of  imagery,  which  gives  reality  to  every  thing. 

Her  mind  wields  the  implements  of  art,  which  it  em- 
ploys with  enchanting  dexterity,  freedom,  and  grace.  The 
diction  is  copious,  rich,  and  apposite;  the  grammatical 
structure  correct,  lucid,  and  most  musical.  Verbal  redun- 
dancy and  slowness  of  recital  are  the  principal  faults  of 
execution.  The  deficiencies  of  the  poem  are  of  a  graver 
kind,  revealing  the  lack  of  native  strength  and  of  Christian 
exaltation  in  the  melancholy  poet's  soul.  The  enjoyments 
represented  all  belong  to  the  refined  gratification  of  the 
senses ;  and  the  discipline  to  which  Psyche  is  subjected, 
as  a  punishment  for  her  disobedient  curiosity  and  a  pro- 
pitiatory humiliation  to  Venus,  has  no  higher  reward  than 
contentment  in  the  renewal  and  immortal  continuance  of 
those  enjoyments. 

The  edition  published  by  Longmans,  in  1811,  is  marked 
on  the  title-page  as  the  third ;  from  thence  the  subjoined 
extracts  are  taken. 

The  description  of  the  heroine  is  illustrated  by  a  very 
beautiful  simile : — 

"  For  she  was  timid  as  the  wintry  flower, 

That  whiter  than  the  snow  it  blooms  among, 
Droops  its  fair  head,  submissive  to  the  power 

Of  every  angry  blast  which  sweeps  along, 
Sparing  the  lovely  trembler,  while  the  strong 

Majestic  tenants  of  the  leafless  wood 
It  levels  low.     But,  ah  !  the  pitying  song 

Must  tell,  how,  than  the  tempest's  self  more  rude 
Fierce  wrath  and  cruel  hate  their  suppliant  pursued." 

Among  her  occupations  in  the  palace  of  Love — 

"  To  charm  the  languid  hours  of  solitude, 
He  oft  invites  her  to  the  Muse's  lore  ; 
For  none  have  vainly  e'er  the  Muse  pursued, 

And  those  whom  she  delights,  regret  no  more 
The  social,  joyous  hours,  while  rapt  they  soar 
To  worlds  unknown,  and  live  in  fancy's  dream." 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  259 

Psyche,  in  her  wanderings,  conies  one  day  to  a  lovely 
bower  surrounded  by  flowers : — 

"  And  every  sweet  that  Spring  with  fairy  hands 

Scatters  in  thy  green  path,  enchanting  May  ! 
And  every  flowering  shrub  there  clustering  stands, 

As  though  they  wooed  her  to  a  short  delay, 

Yielding  a  charm  to  soothe  her  weary  way  ; 
Soft  was  the  tufted  moss,  and  sweet  the  breeze, 

With  lulling  sound  the  murmuring  waters  play, 
With  lulling  sound  from  all  the  rustling  trees, 
The  fragrant  gale  invites  to  cool,  refreshing  ease." 

The  reliance  of  the  gentle  wife  upon  her  husband  in 
times  of  difficulty  and  danger,  is  admirably  well  depicted 
in  the  following  stanzas  : — 

"  Warned  by  late  'perils,  now  she  scarcely  dares 

Quit  for  one  moment  his  protecting  eye, 
Sure  in  his  sight,  her  soul  of  nought  despairs, 

And  nought  looks  dreadful  when  that  arm  is  nigh, 
On  which  her  hopes  with  confidence  rely. 

By  his  advice,  their  constant  course  they  bend, 
He  points  where  hidden  danger  they  should  fly  ; 

On  him  securely,  as  her  heaven-sent  friend, 

She  bids  her  grateful  heart  contentedly  depend. 

Oh,  who  the  exquisite  delight  can  tell, 

The  joy  which  mutual  confidence  imparts, 
Or  who  can  paint  the  charm  unspeakable 

Which  links  in  tender  bands  two  faithful  hearts ! 

In  vain  assailed  by  Fortune's  envious  darts, 
Their  mitigated  woes  are  sweetly  shared, 

And  doubled  joy  reluctantly  departs  : 
Let  but  the  sympathizing  heart  be  spared, 
What  sorrow  seems  not  light  ?  what  peril  is  not  dared  ?  " 

The  reply  of  Psyche  to  the  questions  of  Selfishness  is 
exquisite,  both  in  thought  and  harmonious  expression  : — 

"  '  Is  aught  then  wanting  in  this  fairy  bower  ? 

Or  is  there  aught  which  yet  thy  heart  can  move  ?' 
That  heart,  unyielding  to  their  sovereign's  power, 
In  gentle  whispers  sighing  answers  '  Love.J  " 

The  cleverest  of  women  has  justly  said : — "  Quand  on  a 
pour  premier  but,  en  ecrivant,  de  faire  effet  siir  les  autres, 
on  ne  se  montre  jamais  a  eux  tel  qu'un  est  reellement ;  mais 

G    9 

O    - 


260  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

quand  on  ecrit  pour  satisfaire  a  1'inspiration  interieure 
dont  1'ame  est  saisie  on  fait  connaitre  par  ses  ecrits, 
meme  sans  le  vouloir,  jusques  aux  moindres  nuances  de  sa 
maniere  d'etre  et  de  penser."  * 

Such  was  pre-eminently  the  case  with  the  poetry  of 
Mrs.  Tighe,— 

"  Verse  in  the  finest  mould  of  fancy  cast," 

written  to  her  own  standard  of  taste,  at  the  prompting  of 
her  guileless  heart. 

During  six  long  years  she  painfully  trod  the  valley  of 
the  shadow  of  death.  Her  verses  entitled  '  The  Yartree,' 
show  that  she  had 

"  Tried  the  vanities  of  life, 
And  all  the  poor,  mean  joys  of  fashion  known," 

and  that  their  enforced  renunciation  cost  her  a  dreadful 
struggle.  The  fond  attentions  of  her  husband,  her  mother, 
her  brother,  and  of  many  affectionate  friends,  soothed, 
however,  the  sad  hours  of  suffering.  In  her  '  Verses  to 
Lady  Charlemont  in  return  for  her  presents  of  Flowers,' 
dated  March,  1808,  there  are  some  sweet  revealings  of 
home  happiness : — 

"O'er  me  Affection  loves  to  shed, 
Her  comforts  full,  unmeasured  ; 
To  bless  my  smiling  hearth,  she  sends 
The  dearer  smile  of  dearest  friends  ; 
And  bids  my  prison  couch  assume 
No  form  of  pain,  no  air  of  gloom  ; 
But  sweet  content  and  cheerful  ease, 
All  that  in  solitude  can  please, 
And  all  that  soothing,  social  love 
Can  bid  its  quiet  favourites  prove, 
Wooed  by  the  voice  of  tenderness 
Unite  my  happy  home  to  bless." 


*  When  it  is  our  chief  object  in  writing  to  produce  an  eifect  on  others, 
we  never  show  ourselves  to  them  such  as  we  really  are  :  but  when  we 
write  to  gratify  that  internal  inspiration  which  possesses  the  soul,  we  mani- 
fest in  our  writings,  without  being  aware  of  it,  the  exact  reflex  of  our  own 
lives  and  thoughts. — '  L'Allemagne,'  par  Mde.  De  Stael,  vol.  i.,  chap.  xv. 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  261 

111  the  four  last  verses  of  her  'Hagar  in  the  Desert/ 
Mrs.  Tighe  applies  the  subject  to  her  own  case  with 
touching  pathos : — 

"O'er  thy  empty  pitcher  mourning, 

'Mid  the  desert  of  the  world, 
Thus,  with  shame  and  anguish  burning, 

From  thy  cherished  pleasures  hurled  : 
See  thy  great  Deliverer  nigh, 

Calls  thee  from  thy  sorrow  vain, 
Bids  thee  on  his  love  rely, 

Bless  the  salutary  pain. 
From  thine  eyes  the  mists  dispelling, 

Lo !  the  well  of  life  he  shows, 
In  his  presence  ever  dwelling, 

Bids  thee  find  thy  true  repose. 
Future  prospects  rich  in  blessing, 

Open  to  thy  hopes  secure  ; 
Sure  of  endless  joys  possessing, 

Of  a  heavenly  kingdom  sure." 

And  also  in 

THE  LILY.     WRITTEN  IN  MAY,  1809. 

"  How  withered,  perished  seems  the  form 

Of  yon  obscure,  unsightly  root, 
Yet  from  the  blight  of  wintry  storm, 

It  hides  secure  the  precious  fruit. 
The  careless  eye  can  find  no  grace 

No  beauty  in  the  scaly  folds, 
Nor  see  within  the  dark  embrace 

What  latent  loveliness  it  holds. 
Yet  in  that  bulb,  those  sapless  scales, 

The  Lily  wraps  her  silver  vest, 
Till  vernal  suns  and  vernal  gales 

Shall  kiss  once  more  her  fragrant  breast. 
Yes,  hide  beneath  the  mouldering  heap 

The  undelighting,  slighted  thing. 
There,  in  the  cold  earth  buried  deep, 

In  silence  let  it  wait  the  Spring. 
Oh,  many  a  stormy  night  shall  close 

In  gloom  upon  the  barren  earth, 
While  still  in  undisturbed  repose 

Uninjured  lies  the  future  birth  ; 
And  Ignorance,  with  sceptic  eye, 

Hope's  patient  smile  shall  wondering  view  ; 
Or  mock  her  fond  credulity, 

As  her  soft  te;>rs  the  spot  bedew. 


262  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Sweet  smile  of  Hope,  delicious  tear  ! 

The  sun,  the  shower,  indeed  shall  come, 
The  promised  verdant  shoot  appear, 

And  Nature  bid  her  blossoms  bloom. 
And  thou,  oh,  Virgin  Queen  of  Spring ! 

Shalt  from  thy  dark  and  lowly  bed, 
Bursting  thy  green  sheath's  silken  string, 

Unveil  thy  charms,  and  perfume  shed  ; 

Unfold  thy  robes  of  purest  white, 

Unsullied  from  their  darksome  grave, 
And  thy  soft  petals'  silvery  light 

In  the  mild  breeze  unfettered  wave. 

So  Faith  shall  seek  the  lowly  bed 

Where  humble  Sorrow  loves  to  lie, 
And  bid  her  thus  her  hopes  entrust 

And  watch  with  patient,  cheerful  eye  ! 
And  bear  the  long,  cold,  wintry  night, 

And  bear  her  own  degraded  doom, 
And  wait  till  Heaven's  reviving  light, 

Eternal  Spring,  shall  burst  the  gloom  !  " 

The  progress  of  religious  hope  may  be  traced  in  this 
affecting  poem,  which  embodies  all  her  sadness  and  all  her 
consolation — all  her  love  of  this  beautiful  world,  and  hope 
for  the  next.  The  following  is  replete  with  still  deeper 
and  tenderer  manifestations  of  the  parting  soul's  expe- 
rience : — 

ON  RECEIVING  A  BBANCH  OF  MEZEEEON,  WHICH  FLOWERED  AT 
WOODSTOCK,  DEC.  1809. 

"  Odours  of  Spring,  my  sense  ye  charm, 

With  fragrance  premature  ; 
And  'mid  these  days  of  dark  alarm, 

Almost  to  hope  allure. 
Methinks  with  purpose  soft  ye  come, 

To  tell  of  brighter  hours, 
Of  May's  blue  skies,  abundant  bloom, 

Her  sunny  gales  and  showers. 

Alas  !  for  rue  shall  May  in  vain 

The  powers  of  life  restore ; 
These  eyes  that  weep  and  watch  in  pain 

Shall  see  her  charms  no  more. 
No,  no,  this  anguish  cannot  last ! 

Beloved  friends,  adieu  ! 
The  bitterness  of  death  were  past 

Could  I  resign  but  you. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  263 


But,  oh  !  iu  every  mortal 

That  rends  my  soul  from  life, 
That  soul,  which  seems  on  you  to  hang 

Through  each  convulsive  strife, 
Even  now,  with  agonizing  grasp 
.    Of  terror  and  regret, 
To  all  in  life  its  love  would  clasp 

Clings  close  and  closer  yet. 

Yet  why,  immortal,  vital  spark, 

Thus  mortally  oppressed  ? 
Look  up,  my  soul,  through  prospects  dark 

And  bid  thy  terrors  rest  ; 
Forget,  forego,  thy  earthly  part, 

Thine  heavenly  being  trust  : 
Ah  !  vain  attempt,  my  coward  heart, 

Still  shuddering  clings  to  dust  ! 

O  ye,  who  soothe  the  pangs  of  death, 

With  love's  own  patient  care, 
Still,  still  refain  this  fleeting  breath, 

Still  pour  the  fervent  prayer  ! 
And  ye  whose  smile  must  greet  my  eye 

No  more,  nor  voice  mine  ear, 
Who  breathe  for  me  the  tender  sigh, 

And  shed  the  pitying  tear, 
Whose  kindness  (though  far,  far  removed;, 

My  grateful  thoughts  perceive, 
Pride  of  my  life,  esteemed,  beloved, 

My  last  sad  claim  receive  : 
Oh,  do  not  quite  your  friend  forget, 

Forget  alone  her  faults  ; 
And  speak  of  her  with  fond  regret 

Who  asks  your  lingering  thoughts." 

These  were  the  last  verses  she  ever  wrote.  Her  pre- 
monition was  fulfilled  :  she  never  saw  the  blue  skies  of 
another  May,  expiring  on  the  24th  of  March,  1810  ;  not  at 
Rosanna  in  the  county  of  Wicklow,  which  was  the  home 
of  her  married  life,  but  at  Woodstock  in  the  county  of 
Kilkenny.  Her  friend,  cousin,  and  brother-in-law,  at  whose 
house  she  died,  has  recorded  that  —  "  Her  fears  of  death 
were  perfectly  removed  before  she  quitted  this  scene  of 
trial  and  suffering,  and  her  spirit  departed  to  a  better  state 
of  existence,  confiding  with  heavenly  joy  in  the  accept- 
ance and  love  of  her  Redeemer." 

Several  poets  have  rendered  tribute  to  her  genius  ;  none 


264  LITEKAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

more  worthily  than  Felicia  Hemans,  who  in  1828  wrote 
*  The  Grave  of  a  Poetess,'  of  which  the  two  last  verses  are 
remarkably  appropriate : — 

"  Thou  hast  left  sorrow  in  thy  soiig, 

A  voice  not  loud  but  deep  ; 
The  glorious  bowers  of  earth  among, 

How  often  didst  thou  weep  ! 
Where  couldst  thou  fix,  on  mortal  ground, 

Thy  tender  thoughts  and  high  ? 
Now  peace  the  woman's  heart  hath  found, 

And  joy  the  poet's  eye." 

In  1831  Mrs.  Hemans  visited  Woodstock,  and  saw  both 
the  house  in  which  she  died  and  the  grave  of  Mrs.  Tighe, 
in  company  with  the  widower  and  some  of  her  other  kins- 
folk ;  admired  the  glorious  local  scenery,  and  the  recum- 
bent effigy  by  Flaxman,  and  read  with  intense  interest  a 
manuscript  collection  of  Mrs.  Tighe's  early  poems.  After 
having  seen  these  memorials,  Mrs.  Hemans  wrote  her 
verses  '  On  Kecords  of  Immature  Genius.' 

"  Oh  !  judge  in  thoughtful  tenderness  of  those 

Who  richly  dowered  for  life  are  called  to  die 
Ere  the  soul's  flame  through  storms  hath  won  repose, 

In  truth's  divinest  ether,  still  and  high  ; 

Let  their  mind's  riches  claim  a  truthful  sigh  : 
Deem  them  but  sad,  sweet  fragments  of  a  strain, 

First  notes  of  some  yet  struggling  harmony, 
By  the  strong  rush,  the  crowding  joy  and  pain 
Of  many  inspirations  met,  and  held 
From  its  true  sphere  ;  oh  !  soon  it  might  have  swelled 

Majestically  forth  !     No  doubt  that  He 
Whose  touch  mysterious,  may  on  earth  dissolve 
Those  links  of  music,  elsewhere  will  evolve 

Their  grand  consummate  hymn,  from  passion-gusts  made  free." 

Mrs.  Hemans  also  wrote  '  Lines  for  the  Album  at  Kosanna,' 

"  Where  a  sweet  spirit  once  in  beauty  moved." 
A  fourth  poem,  '  Written  after  visiting  a  Tomb  near 
Woodstock,  in  the  -county  of  Kilkenny,'  bears  little  rela- 
tion to  Mrs.  Tighe,  excepting  in  five  out  of  its  forty-four 
lines,  two  of  those  five  being  exquisitely  fine  :— 

"  Oh,  Love  and  Song  !  though  of  heaven  your  powers, 
Dark  is  your  fate  in  this  world  of  ours." 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  265 


CHAPTER    XI11. 

THE  POETESSES. 
A.D.  1810-1825. 

Mrs.  Hunter  —  Mrs.  Thrale  —  Jane  Taylor  —  Eleanor  Anne  Porden 
Mrs.  Barbauld  —  Lady  Anne  Barnard. 


To  mortal  toils,  of  various  kind, 

Are  sweet  but  different  gifts  assigned."  * 


ANNE  HUNTER. 

ACCORDING  to  Burke's  genealogy,  Anne  was  the  eldest 
daughter  of  Robert  Home,  Esquire,  of  Greenlaw  Castle, 
in  the  county  of  Berwick.  Robert  Chambers,  in  his 
*  Scottish  Biography,'  mentions  her  as  the  daughter  of 
Mr.  Boyne  Home,  surgeon  of  Burgoyne's  Regiment  of 
Light  Horse,  and  both  descriptions  are  probably  consistent 
and  correct.  She  was  born  in  1742.  While  John  Hunter, 
the  great  surgeon  and  natural  philosopher,  was  rising  to 
eminence,  love  for  this  beautiful  and  accomplished  woman 
stimulated  his  efforts  to  overcome  the  obstacle  of  poverty, 
and  to  procure  the  means  of  suitable  maintenance  for  one 
whom  he  deemed  well  suited  to  be  both  a  household  joy 
and  an  ornament  to  any  station  in  society.  The  attach- 
ment was  mutual,  and,  after  a  delay  of  several  years,  they 
were  married  in  the  year  1771.  Her  younger  brother, 
afterwards  Sir  Everard  Home,  Baronet,  was  then  a  boy  at 

*  Pindar's  1st  Isthmian  Ode  ;  translated  by  Wheelwright. 


266  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Westminster  School,  and  John  Hunter  generously  under- 
took to  bring  him  up  to  his  own  profession.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Hunter  had  several  children,  of  whom  only  two 
attained  maturity,  meriting  their  father's  frequent  boast 
"  that  if  he  had  been  allowed  to  bespeak  a  pair  of  children, 
they  should  have  been  those  with  which  Providence  had 
favoured  him."  The  son  became  a  major  in  the  army, 
the  daughter  married  General  Campbell,  of  Inverneil. 

Mrs.  Hunter's  amiable  disposition  rendered  her  deeply 
beloved  by  her  family :  her  fine  natural  talents  had  been 
assiduously  improved  by  cultivation,  and  she  delighted  in 
devoting  them  to  the  sacred  purpose  of  soothing  arid  glad- 
dening her  husband's  toil-worn  spirits.  They  kept  a  liberal 
house,  entertained  the  best  company,  and  when  Mrs.  Vesey's 
declining  health  incapacitated  her  from  assembling  the 
great,  the  learned,  and  the  witty,  for  social  intercourse, 
Mrs.  Hunter  threw  open  her  reception  rooms  once  a  fort- 
night every  winter  to  the  same  brilliant  parties  of  educated 
talkers  and  thinkers  of  every  class.  Mrs.  Hunter  had 
fine  musical  abilities  ;  she  played  and  sang  with  remark- 
able taste  and  skill,  and  the  delicacy  of  her  features  and 
dignity  of  her  person  were  universally  attractive ;  never- 
theless, her  gentle  and  unassuming  temper  induced  her  to 
be  only  proud  of  owing  everything  to  her  distinguished 
husband,  and  to  attribute  all  the  admiration  and  attention 
which  she  met  with  to  the  world's  estimation  of  his  extra- 
ordinary merit.  John  Hunter's  sudden  death,  on  the 
16th  of  October,  1793,  in  the  sixty-fifth  year  of  his  age, 
left  her  a  widow  in  easy  though  not  affluent  circumstances, 
and  she  subsequently  withdrew  into  comparative  retire- 
ment. In  1806,  yielding  to  the  persuasions  of  friends, 
she  published  a  collection  of  her  poems,  many  of  which 
had  been  set  to  music  by  Haydn. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  267 

She  died,  at  her  house  in  Holies-street,  on  the  7th  of 
January,  1821,  in  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  her  age. 

Feminine  tenderness  and  delicacy  of  sentiment  are  the 
chief  characteristics  of  her  poetry,  of  which  the  following 
piece  is  a  specimen  :— 

Tin:  LOT  OF  THOUSANDS. 

"  When  hope  lies  dead  within  the  heart, 

By  secret  sorrow  elose  concealed, 
We  shrink  lest  looks  or  words  impart 

What  must  not  be  revealed. 
TT  is  hard  to  smile  when  one  would  \vi-cp, 

To  speak  when  one  would  silent  be, 
To  wake  when  one  would  wish  to  sleep, 

And  wake  to  agony. 
Yet  such  the«lot  by  thousands  caak, 

Who  wander  in  this  world  of  cart-, 
And  bend  beneath  the  bitter  blast, 

To  save  them  from  despair. 
But  Nature  waits  her  guests  to  greet 

Where  disappointment  cannot  come, 
And  Time  guides  with  unerring  feet, 

The  weary  wanderers  home." 

'Queen  Mary's  Lament,'  '  My  mother  bids  nie  bind  my 
hair,'  and  other  popular  favourites  are  hers. 

HESTER  LYNCH  THRALE. 

John  Salusbury,  Esquire,  of  Bachegraig,  Flintshire, 
married,  in  the  year  1739,  Hester  Maria,  daughter  of 
Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  Baronet,  of  Combermere,  in  the  county 
of  Chester ;  and,  on  the  27th  of  January,  1740,  Hester 
Lynch,  their  only  child  and  heir,  was  born  at  Bodvil,  in 
Caernarvonshire.  With  the  advantages  of  gentle  blood 
and  patrimonial  wealth  she  possessed  great  personal  attrac- 
tions, vivacious  spirits,  and  those  quick,  keen,  faculties  of 
mind  which  justly  entitle  their  possessor  to  be  called  a 
clever  woman. 

Her  education  was  carefully  attended  to,  and  her  many 


268  LITEKABY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

accomplishments,  wit,  and  conversational  brilliancy,  gained 
early  admiration  in  fashionable  circles. 

In  1763  she  married  Mr.  Henry  Thrale,  M.P.  for 
Southwark,  one  of  those  princely  metropolitan  brewers, 
who,  to  quote  the  pompous  and  auctioneerlike  description 
of  his  friend  Dr.  Johnson,  "  possessed  the  potentiality  of 
growing  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice."  In  the  year 
1765  that  acquaintance  with  the  great  lexicographer  com- 
menced, which  soon  rose  to  intimacy,  conduced  to  the 
happiness  of  all  parties,  added  to  the  living  celebrity  of 
Mrs.  Thrale,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  her  literary  monu- 
ment. 

In  the  following  -year  she  contributed  several  poems  to 
Anna  Williams's  '  Miscellanies,'  and  one  among  them  has 
proved  the  most  valuable  of  all  Mrs.  Thrale's  writings,  and 
still  holds  its  solitary  place  in  public  estimation  by  the 
claim  of  intrinsic  merit. 

In  1781,  after  having  passed  through  eighteen  years  of 
domestic  trial  softened  by  social  enjoyment,  the  sudden 
death  of  Mr.  Thrale  left  her  a  wealthy  widow.  They  had 
previously  lost  their  only  son,  and  Mrs.  Thrale,  with  her  four 
daughters,  removed  after  her  husband's  decease  from  his 
hospitable  home  at  Streatham  to  a  house  in  the  city  of  Bath. 
There  she  engaged  the  services  of  Signor  Gabriel  Piozzi, 
a  young  and  handsome  Italian,  as  music-master  to  her 
daughters,  and,  in  defiance  of  the  remonstrances  of  her 
friends,  she  married  him  in  1784.  In  the  same  year  Dr. 
Johnson  died,  and  Mrs.  Piozzi  published  a  volume  entitled 
'  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  during  the  last  twenty 
years  of  his  life.'  This  book,  though  inexact  and  incomplete, 
as  woman's  works  are  ever  apt  to  be,  contains  materials  of 
which  subsequent  biographers  have  proved  the  value. 

Soon  after  her  second  marriage  Mrs.  Piozzi  accompanied 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         20!) 

her  husband  to  his  native  country,  became  acquainted  at 
Florence  with  Mr.  Robert  Merry,  the  self-styled  Delia 
Crusca,  Mr.  Bertie  Greathead,  Mr.  William  Parsons,  and 
other  English  gentlemen  of  equally  bad  taste,  adopted 
their  literary  peculiarities,  and  contributed  several  com- 
positions, both  in  prose  and  verse,  to  their  collection, 
printed  in  1786,  and  called  '  The  Florentine  Miscellany.' 

In  1788  she  published  two  volumes  of '  Letters  to  and 
from  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson/  In  1789  she  published  *  Obser- 
vations and  Reflections  made  in  the  course  of  a  Journey 
through  France,  Italy,  and  Germany,'  in  two  volumes :  in 
1794  her  'British  Synonymy,  or  an  Attempt  to  Regulate 
the  Choice  of  Words  in  Familiar  Conversation,'  in  two 
volumes ;  and,  in  1801, '  Retrospection,  or  a  Review  of  the 
most  striking  and  important  Events,  Characters,  Situations, 
and  their  Consequences,  which  the  last  eighteen  hundred 
years  have  presented  to  the  view  of  Mankind.' 

In  1809  Signor  Piozzi  died.  Her  elastic  spirits  de- 
pressed for  a  little  while  by  this  bereavement  recovered 
in  due  time  their  natural  tone,  and  lasted  out  her  life. 
On  the  27th  of  January,  1820,  she  celebrated  her  eightieth 
birthday  by  an  entertainment  in  the  Assembly  Rooms  at 
Bath,  where,  assisted  by  her  kinsfolk,  Sir  John  and  Lady 
Salusbury,  she  received  between  seven  and  eight  hundred 
people  with  her  wonted  urbanity  and  sprightliness.  She 
opened  the  ball  with  Sir  John,  danced  with  the  alacrity 
and  dignity  of  her  youthful  days,  and  afterwards  presided 
with  affable  hospitality  at  the  supper-table,  having  one 
British  admiral  on  her  right  and  another  on  her  left 
hand. 

On  the  2nd  of  May,  1821,  she  died  at  Clifton. 

Her  only  good  poem  needs  no  eulogy,  it  commends 
itself  to  the  common  sense  of  mankind. 


270  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

THE  THREE  WARNINGS.     A  TALE. 

"  The  tree  of  deepest  root  is  found 
Least  willing  still  to  quit  the  ground  : 
'T  was  therefore  said,  by  ancient  sages, 

That  love  of  life  increas'd  with  years 
So  much  that  in  our  latter  stages, 
When  pains  grows  sharp,  and  sickness  rages, 

The  greatest  love  of  life  appears. 

This  great  affection  to  believe, 
Which  all  confess,  but  few  perceive, 
If  old  assertions  can't  prevail, 
Be  pleased  to  hear  a  modern  tale. 

When  sports  went  round,  and  all  were  gay, 
On  neighbour  Dobson's  wedding-day, 
Death  call'd  aside  the  jocund  groom 
With  him  into  another  room, 
And  looking  grave,  '  You  must,'  says  he, 
'  Quit  your  sweet  bride,  and  come  with  me.' 
'  With  you !  and  quit  my  Susan's  side ! 
'  With  you !'  the  hapless  husband  cried  ; 
'  Young  as  I  am  !  't  is  monstrous  hard  ! 
'  Besides,  in  truth,  I'm  not  prepared  : 
'  My  thoughts  on  other  matters  go, 
'This  is  my  wedding-night,  you  know.' 

What  more  he  urg'd  I  have  not  heard, 
His  reasons  could  not  well  be  stronger ; 

So  Death  the  poor  delinquent  spar'd, 
And  left  to  live  a  little  longer. 
Yet  calling  up  a  serious  look, 
His  hour-glass  trembled  while  he  spoke, 
'  Neighbour,'  he  said,  '  farewell ;  no  more 
'  Shall  Death  disturb  your  mirthful  hour ; 
'  And  further  to  avoid  all  blame 
'  Of  cruelty  upon  my  name, 
1  To  give  you  time  for  preparation, 
'  And  fit  you  for  your  future  station, 
'  Three  several  Warnings  shall  you  have, 
'  Before  you  're  summoned  to  the  grave  : 
'  Willing  for  once  I'll  quit  my  prey, 

'  And  grant  a  kind  reprieve  : 
'  In  hopes  you'll  have  no  more  to  say, 
'  But  when  I  call  again  this  way, 

'  Well  pleas'd  the  world  will  leave.' 
To  these  conditions  both  consented, 
And  parted  perfectly  contented. 

What  next  the  hero  of  our  tale  befell, 
How  long  he  liv'd,  how  wise,  how  well, 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  271 

How  roundly  In-  piirsuM  his  course, 

And  smnk'd  his  pipe,  and  strok'd  his  horse, 

The  willing  Muse  shall  tell : 
He  ehaller'd  tlu-n,  he  bought,  ho  sold. 
Nor  once  perceived  his  growing  old, 

Nor  thought  of  Death  as  near ; 
His  friends  not  false,  his  wife  no  shivw. 
Many  his  gains,  his  children  few, 

He  pass'd  his  hours  in  peace  : 
But  while  he  view'd  his  wealth  increase, 
While  thus  along  Life's  dusty  road 
The  beaten  track  content  he  trod, 
Old  Time,  whose  haste  no  mortal  spares. 
UncalTd,  unheeded,  unawares, 
Brought  on  his  eightieth  year. 

And  now  one  night  in  musing  mood, 
As  all  alone  he  sate, 
Th'  unwelcome  messenger  of  Fate 

Once  more  befoie  him  stood. 

Half  kill'd  with  anger  and  surprise, 
'  So  soon  return'd  ! '  old  Dobson  cries. 

•  So  soon  d'ye  call  it  ?  '   Death  replies  ; 
'  Surely,  my  friend,  you  're  but  in  jest ; 

'  Since  I  was  here  before, 
T  is  six-and-tliirty  years  at  least, 

'  And  you  are  now  fourscore.' 

'  So  much  the  worse,'  the  clown  rejoined  ; 

4  To  spare  the  aged  would  be  kind  : 

'  However,  see  your  search  be  legal  ; 

'  And  your  authority — is  't  regal  ? 

'  Else  you  are  come  on  a  fool's  errand, 

'  With  but  a  Secretary's  warrant. 

'  Besides  you  promis'd  me  Three  Warnings, 

'  Which  I  have  look'd  for  nights  and  mornings,    * 

4  But  for  that  loss  of  time  and  ease, 

4 1  can  recover  damages.' 

'  I  know,'  cries  Death,  « that,  at  the  best, 
4 1  seldom  am  a  welcome  guest : 
'  But  don't  be  captious,  friend,  at  least : 
4 1  little  thought  you'd  still  be  able 
'  To  stump  about  your  farm  and  stable  ; 
4  Yoiir  years  have  run  to  a  great  length, 
4 1  wish  you  joy,  though,  of  your  strength.' 

4  Hold,'  says  the  farmer,  4  not  so  fast, 
4 1  have  been  lame  this  four  years  past.' 

'  And  no  great  wonder,'  Death  replies  ; 
4  However,  you  still  keep  your  eyes ; 
4  And  sure,  to  see  one's  loves  and  friend>. 
4  For  legs  and  arms  would  make  amends.' 


272  LITERARY   WOMEN  OF    ENGLAND. 

'  Perhaps,'  says  Dobson,  *  so  it  might, 
'  But  latterly  I've  lost  my  sight.' 

'  This  is  a  shocking  story,  'faith ; 
'  Yet  there  's  some  comfort  still,'  says  Death ; 
'  Each  strives  your  sadness  to  amuse, 
'  I'll  warrant  you  hear  all  the  news.' 

'  There  's  none,'  cries  he,  '  and  if  there  were, 
'  I'm  grown  so  deaf,  I  could  not  hear,' 

'Nay  then,'  the  spectre  stern  rejoined, 
'  These  are  unjustifiable  yearnings  ; 

'  If  you  are  Lame,  and  Deaf,  and  Blind, 
'  You've  had  your  Three  sufficient  Warnings. 
'  So  come  along,  no  more  we'll  part !' 
He  said,  and  touched  him  with  his  dart ; 
And  now  old  Dobson,  turning  pale, 
Yields  to  his  fate — so  ends  my  tale." 


JANE  TAYLOR. 

The  children  of  the  British  empire  are  more  indebted  to 
Dr.  Isaac  Watts  than  to  any  other  writer,  and  next  to  him 
perhaps  to  Anne  and  Jane  Taylor  of  Ongar.  Isaac  Taylor, 
their  father,  practised  for  many  years  the  art  of  line- 
engraving,  and  gained  distinction  in  London.  His  wife 
was  a  woman  of  excellent  sense  and  of  many  acquirements. 
They  had  a  large  family  of  children,  and  Jane,  the  second 
daughter,  was  born  in  London  on  the  23rd  of  September, 
1783.  In  the  summer  of  the  year  1786  they  removed  to 
Lavenham  in  Suffolk,  where  the  father  continued  his 
artistic  labours,  and  being  a  man  of  deep  piety  and  ener- 
getic temper  occupied  himself  occasionally  in  delivering 
lectures  on  religious  and  scientific  subjects. 

Delicate  health,  fertility  of  practical  invention,  and  a 
tendency  to  imaginative  pleasures  were  among  her  early 
characteristics.  She  began  to  make  verses  and  tales  at  a 
very  early  age,  and  the  first  ambition  which  her  timid  and 
reserved  nature  evinced  was  to  write  a  book.  Her  temper 
was  very  gentle,  her  affections  were  tender  and  deep,  and 
she  was  more  especially  distinguished  by  a  susceptibility 


!  HI  KAIIY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  273 

for  generous  and  faithful  friendship,  which  continuously 
made  the  wish  to  gratify  those  whom  she  loved  a  principal 
motive  of  action.  Early  in  the  year  1790  her  father 
accepted  the  invitation  of  an  Independent  congregation  at 
Colchester,  and  became  their  minister.  He  educated  his 
children  with  singular  care,  judgment,  and  success,  laying 
the  foundation  of  comprehensive  knowledge,  and  balancing 
the  objects  of  mental  interest  so  as  to  prevent  a  narrow 
and  exclusive  attachment  to  any  one  pursuit.  This  wise 
and  clever  man  also  instructed  all  his  sons  and  daughters 
in  the  art  of  engraving,  as  a  means,  should  necessity  occur, 
of  earning  their  own  livelihood.  His  wife  aided  him 
zealously  in  the  work  of  family  instruction,  and  not  only 
made  her  daughters  acquainted  with  feminine  accomplish- 
ments of  an  elegant  kind,  but  practically  and  thoroughly 
conversant  with  every  branch  of  domestic  economy.  Be- 
sides the  stated  lessons  which  Jane  Taylor  daily  received 
through  a  long  series  of  years,  and  the  knowledge  of  facts 
and  principles  which  she  imbibed  with  the  very  atmosphere 
of  her  home,  the  incitement  of  pious  and  amiable  example 
in  her  parents  and  the  affectionate  emulation  of  her 
brothers  and  sisters  led  her  from  infancy  to  pursue  with 
eagerness  all  things  morally  and  mentally  excellent.  The 
family  changes  of  residence,  and  occasional  visits  from, 
home  supplied  her  with  the  experience  of  varied  conven- 
tional life  in  the  metropolis,  in  a  country  town  near  the 
sea,  and  in  a  rural  district.  With  a  capacity  enriched  by 
these  and  by  many  tributary  sources,  and  with  faculties 
naturally  fine  though  almost  shrinking  from  disclosure, 
Jane  Taylor  grew  up  to  womanhood.  Her  domestic  lot 
was  a  happy  one.  In  her  paternal  home  she  lived  among 
congenial  spirits,  loving  and  beloved,  in  the  unobtrusive 
employment  of  talents,  of  which  the  use  implies  enjoy- 

T 


274  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

ment,  while  their  aim,  directed  by  duty,  assures  a  happy 
success,  apart  from  those  immediate  and  transient  results 
which  often  brought  the  glow  of  delight  to  her  affectionate 
heart. 

In  the  year  1810  her  father  resigned  his  charge  at 
Colchester,  and,  having  accepted  one  of  a  similar  kind  at 
Ongar,  removed  thither  with  his  family  in  1811.  With 
that  place  their  name  and  fame  became  henceforth  indis- 
solubly  connected.  Mr.  Taylor  was  the  author  of  several 
books  intended  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  young  persons  ; 
and,  late  in  life,  Mrs.  Taylor  also  published  several,  with 
the  apparent  intention  of  making  known  to  other  parents 
those  principles  which  had  been  so  efficaciously  applied  to 
the  training  of  her  own  highly-gifted  progeny. 

It  was  once  projected  that  Jane  Taylor  and  her  eldest 
sister  should  join  in  establishing  a  school,  but,  to  her  great 
relief,  family  circumstances  required  different  arrange- 
ments. Anne  Taylor  married  the  Kev.  Joseph  Gilbert, 
and  Jane  Taylor  gave  herself  up  to  nurse  the  sick,  to 
accompany  the  valetudinarian  in  excursions,  to  teach  poor 
children  to  read,  to  manage  domestic  affairs,  and  to  make 
herself  useful  either  at  home  or  among  her  relations  and 
friends  in  every  possible  way,  pursuing  meanwhile  her 
literary  occupations  whenever  health  and  leisure  allowed. 
Much  of  her  time,  when  away,  was  spent  in  the  western 
counties,  with  that  beloved  brother  whose  admirable 
writings  have  since  edified  the  Christian  world. 

Habitual  diffidence  and  religious  melancholy  constituted 
the  principal  drawbacks  upon  her  great  advantages,  and 
produced  the  chief  trials  and  sorrows  of  her  mortal  proba- 
tion. Aided  by  benignant  household  influences  and  upheld 
by  humble  and  steadfast  piety,  she  combated  these  beset- 
ting evils,  even  when  enhanced  by  the  gradual  decline  of 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  275 

physical  strength  under  the  corrosion  of  painless  cancer, 
of  which  she  died,  in  calm  and  peaceful  hope,  on  the 
5th  of  April,  1822. 

'The  Beggar  Boy,'  which  appeared  in  'The  Minor's 
Pocket  Book '  for  1804,  was  the  first  thing  she  ever  pub- 
lished. Her  share  in  the  *  Original  Poems,'  to  which  her 
sister  Anne  and  many  other  members  of  the  family  con- 
tributed, harmonizes  with  the  general  tenor  of  the  work  in 
furnishing  a  collection  of  simple  and  familiar  stories, 
examples,  descriptions,  and  didactic  warnings,  pleasant  to 
the  ear  and  fascinating  to  the  attention  of  childhood,  while 
gently  instilling  truths  into  the  very  substance  of  the  warm 
little  heart,  to  remain  an  inseparable  part  of  its  moral 
nature  for  ever. 

Jane  Taylor  was  one  of  '  The  Associate  Minstrels,'  whose 
volume  gained  much  contemporary  fame.  She  also  con- 
tributed to  '  The  Youth's  Magazine '  and  other  periodicals. 

Her  hymns,  and  those  of  her  sister  Anne,  in  the  little 
volume  entitled  '  Hymns  for  Infant  Minds/  must  have 
been  composed  for  individual  children,  because  every  word, 
sentence,  and  meaning,  is  precisely  and  adroitly  fitted  to 
the  comprehension  of  children  in  general,  and  no  theoretic 
child  could  have  served  as  a  true  type  of  the  species.  In 
her  hymns,  the  intuitive  sense  of  helpless  dependence  and 
of  moral  obligation,  as  evinced  by  infant  hearts,  is  met, 
cherished,  and  supplied  with  the  innate  and  tender  skill 
of  a  woman,  who,  remembering  her  own  early  feelings,  can 
participate  in  those  of  the  little  ones  whom  she  loves. 
The  ' Hymns  for  Sunday-Schools'  are  also  excellent.  The 
*  Nursery  Khymes,'  which  amaze  and  delight  all  intelligent 
children,  by  entering  into  their  sayings,  and  doings,  and 
moods  of  mind,  contain  some  verses  of  true  poetry  which 
have  kindled  the  living  flame  of  bardic  inspiration  in  more 

T  2 


276  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

than  one  young  breast,  and  wrought  for  themselves  an 
abiding  place  in  the  memory  of  many  a  grateful,  though 
unknown,  friend  of  the  Taylors  of  Ongar. 

The  following  is  one  of  a  series  marked  with  the  initials 
"J.  T."  in  the  third  edition,  published  by  Darton  and 
Harvey  in  1809. 

THE  MEADOWS. 

"  We  11  go  to  the  meadows  where  cowslips  do  grow  ; 

And  buttercups  looking  as  yellow  as  gold  ; 
And  daisies  and  violets  beginning  to  blow  ; 
For  it  is  a  most  beautiful  sight  to  behold  ! 

The  little  bee  humming  about  them  is  seen, 

The  butterfly  merrily  dances  along ; 
The  grasshopper  chirps  in  the  hedges  of  green, 

And  the  linnet  is  singing  his  liveliest  song. 

The  birds  and  the  insects  are  happy  and  gay, 
The  beasts  of  the  field  they  are  glad  and  rejoice, 

And  we  will  be  thankful  to  God  ev'ry  day, 
And  praise  his  great  name  in  a  loftier  voice. 

He  made  the  green  meadows,  he  planted  the  flow'rs, 
He  sent  his  bright  sun  in  the  heavens  to  blaze, 

He  created  these  wonderful  bodies  of  ours, 

And  as  long  as  we  live  we  will  sing  of  his  praise." 

The  '  City  Scenes '  and  the  t  Kural  Scenes,'  in  which 
Jane  Taylor  had  also  a  principal  partnership,  exhibit  ad- 
vantageously the  observant  aptitude  and  rectitude  of  the 
clever  authors  and  artists,  who,  with  words  graphic  as  their 
graving  tools,  bring  London  and  its  every-day  sights  and 
sounds,  the  country  in  its  ordinary  aspects  and  with  its 
usual  inhabitants  and  itinerants,  before  the  fancy,  with  the 
softening  effect  of  distance  and  the  cheerful  stir  of  reality. 

Her  'Display,  a  Tale  for  Young  People'  was  published 
in  1815,  and  attended  with  great  success.  It  has  faults  of 
style  and  of  structure  which  render  it  unpleasing  to  many 
of  those  whom  it  is  necessary  to  please  in  order  to  benefit, 
but  it  embodies  much  knowledge  of  human  nature,  of 
feminine  character,  and  of  middle-class  life.  Its  object  is 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  277 

to  lead  young  girls  to  be  really,  honestly,  and  thoroughly 
the  amiable  creatures  they  fain  would  appear  to  be,  and 
to  aim,  not  at  showy  and  vain-glorious  distinctions  but 
at  the  simple  adjustment  of  the  principles  and  conduct 
to  the  allotted  position  in  society,  seeking  through  all 
worldly  complications  to  find  true  happiness  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  duty.  Perhaps  the  purpose  of  the  book  may  be 
rather  too  ostensibly  marked  on  every  page,  and  would 
have  wrought  more  effectually  upon  youthful  minds  had 
it  been  less  sedulously  kept  before  them  and  left  more  to 
be  implied  and  inferred.  The  characters  are  drawn  with 
a  firm  yet  delicate  stroke,  and  imbued  with  only  just 
colour  enough  to  mark  their  distinctions  plainly. 

In  1816  she  produced  her  most  elaborate  work,  'Essays 
in  Rhvme  on  Morals  and  Manners.' 

9 

Her  mature  productions  evince  sound  practical  sense  and 
remarkable  acuteness,  though  she  seldom  appears  to  be  as 
much  at  ease  when  addressing  grown-up  persons  as  when 
shaping  her  quaint  and  lively  fancies  for  the  minds  of 
children. 

'The  Philosopher's  Scales'  is  a  spirited  composition 
replete  with  sarcastic  mirth,  that  mirth  which  is  ever  so 
closely  allied  to  melancholy,  and  it  might  by  her  own 
judicious  revision  have  been  shaped  into  a  very  clever 
and  perfect  piece  of  satire. 

An  idea  of  it  is  briefly  conveyed  by  the — 

MORAL. 

i 

"  Dear  Reader,  if  e'er  self-deception  prevails, 
We  pray  you  to  try  the  philosopher's  scales  ; 
But  if  they  are  lost  in  the  ruins  around, 
Perhaps  a  good  substitute  thus  may  be  found. 
Let  Judgment  and  Conscience  in  circles  be  cut, 
To  which  strings  of  Thought  may  be  carefully  put ; 
Let  these  be  made  even  with  Caution  extreme, 
And  Impartiality  use  as  a  beam  : 
Then  bring  those  good  actions  which  Pride  overrates, 
And  tear  up  your  Motives  to  serve  for  the  weights." 


278  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

The  lively  reproof  thus  conveyed  is  spoilt  by  the  enjoined 
application  of  material  scissors  to  mental  and  moral  quali- 
ties— 

"  Let  Judgment  and  Conscience  in  circles  be  cut,"  &c. 

The  following  meditation  in  rhyme  is  an  utterance  of 
the  heart : — • 

THE  THINGS  THAT  ARE  UNSEEN  AND  ETERNAL. 

"  There  is  a  state  unknown,  unseen, 

Where  parted  souls  must  be  : 

And  but  a  step  may  be  between 

That  world  of  souls  and  me. 

The  friend  I  loved  has  thither  fled, 

With  whom  I  sojourned  here  : 
I  see  no  sight,  I  hear  no  tread, 

But  may  she  not  be  near  ? 

I  see  no  light,  I  hear  no  sound, 

When  midnight  shades  are  spread  : 
Yet  angels  pitch  their  tents  around, 

And  guard  my  quiet  bed. 

Jesus  was  wrapt  from  mortal  gaze, 

And  clouds  conveyed  him  hence ; 
Enthroned  amid  the  sapphire  blaze, 

Beyond  our  feeble  sense. 

Yet  say  not — Who  shall  mount  on  high, 

To  bring  him  from  above  ? 
For,  lo  !  the  Lord  is  always  nigh 

The  children  of  his  love. 

The  Saviour  whom  I  long  have  sought, 

And  would,  but  cannot  see : 
And  is  he  here  ?  oh,  wondrous  thought  ! 

And  will  he  dwell  with  me  ? 

I  ask  not  with  my  mortal  eye 

To  view  the  vision  bright ; 
I  dare  not  see  thee,  lest  I  die  ; 

Yet,  Lord,  restore  my  sight ! 

Give  me  to  see  thee,  and  to  feel 

The  mental  vision  clear  ; 
The  things  unseen  reveal,  reveal, 

And  let  me  know  them  near. 

I  seek  not  fancy's  glittering  height, 

That  charmed  my  ardent  youth  ; 
But  in  thy  light  would  see  the  light, 

And  learn  thy  perfect  truth. 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  279 

The  #itln-rin«;  clouds  of  sense  dispel, 

That  wrap  my  soul  around  ; 
In  h<  avciily  places  make  me  dwell, 

While  treading  earthly  ground. 
Illume  this  shadowy  soul  of  mine, 

That  still  in  darkness  lies  ; 
Oh,  let  the  light  in  darkness  shine, 

And  bid  the  day-star  rise. 
Impart  the  faith  that  soars  on  high, 

Beyond  this  earthly  strife, 
That  holds  sweet  converse  with  the  sky, 

And  lives  eternal  life." 

Her  eminent  brother,  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor  of  Stansted 
Rivers,  has  written  a  *  Memoir  of  Jane  Taylor'  with  an 
analytical  view  of  her  character  and  talents.  He  has  also 
collected  her  fugitive  piece's  and  literary  remains.  To  all 
readers  who  study  education  as  a  system,  to  those  who  are 
diligently  bent  on  self-improvement,  and  more  especially 
to  young  girls  who  feel  in  their  hearts  the  stirring  impulse 
of  literary  ambition,  those  volumes  ought  to  be  incalculably 
precious,  in  which  the  gradual  development  of  Jane  Taylor's 
character  is  traced  by  the  fraternal  hand  of  the  author  of 
'Home  Education.' 

ELEANOR-ANNE  PORDEN. 

Eleanor-Anne  was  the  youngest  daughter  of  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Porden,  of  Berners  Street,  London,  an  eminent 
architect.  She  was  born  in  the  year  1795,  gave  early 
indications  of  superior  talents,  and  acquired  with  facility 
a  knowledge  of  several  languages,  and  an  exact  and  ex- 
tensive acquaintance  with  the  physical  sciences.  Her 
family  and  friends  were  fond  of  literature,  and  a  salt-box 
for  poetical  contributions  was  kept  at  her  father's  house. 
Her  first  composition,  a  poem  entitled  *  The  Veils,  or  the 
Triumph  of  Constancy,'  was  placed  in  that  depository  be- 
fore she  had  completed  her  seventeenth  year.  It  obtained 
the  admiration  of  her  social  circle,  and  was  published  in 


280  LITEEAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  year  1815,  with  a  dedication  to  the  Countess  Spencer. 
The  reviews  of  the  period  made  favourable  mention  of  the 
work.  It  represents  the  regions  of  the  four  so-called 
elements,  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water;  and  shows  their 
active  properties  under  the  imagery  of  fabled  inhabitants 
engaged  in  antagonistic  struggles  for  supremacy.  The 
operation  of  this  Eosicrucian  machinery  is  ingenious,  and 
the  versification  not  below  mediocrity.  Crudeness  and 
pedantry  are  the  most  prominent  faults  of  the  '  Veils/  The 
present  critic  recollects  to  have  read  it  when  a  child  with 
lively  interest,  but  probably  that  interest  arose  in  a  great 
measure  from  sympathetic  ambition. 

Some  years  afterwards  Miss  Porden  published  another 
poem,  called  the  ( Arctic  Expedition.'  In  1822  she  pro- 
duced her  best  work,  an  epic  poem  on  the  subject  of  the 
third  Crusade;  and  in  the  same  year  she  unfortunately 
ruptured  a  blood-vessel  on  the  lungs,  which  increased  an 
inherent  tendency  to  consumption.  In  August,  1823,  she 
married  Captain  Franklin,  and  in  June,  1824,  gave  birth 
to  a  daughter,  after  which  for  a  short  time  her  health 
revived. 

Mary  Eussell  Mitford,  in  the  introduction  to  her  '  Dra- 
matic Works/  says : — "  It  was  during  the  run  of  '  Julian/ 
that,  seeing  much  of  my  dear  friend  Miss  Porden  (after- 
wards married  to  Sir  John  Franklin),  and  talking  with 
her  of  subjects  for  a  fresh  effort,  one  or  the  other,  I  hardly 

know  which,  hit  upon  *  Kienzi.' Miss  Porden  had 

herself  written  an  heroic  poem  called  'Coeur  de  Lion,' 
which,  if  anybody  now-a-days  could  read  an  epic  two 
volumes  long,  would  be  found  remarkable  as  a  promise ; 
so  she  was  far  from  being  startled  at  my  boldness,  and 
took  a  vivid  interest  in  my  attempt.  A  year  or  two  after, 
when  in  London  negotiating  about  this  very  play,  I  saw 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  281 

In -r  again  as  Mrs.  Franklin.  Her  husband  was  in  Lin- 
colnshire, taking  leave  of  his  relations  before  setting  forth 
on  one  of  his  adventurous  voyages ;  and  in  the  midst  of 
her  warm  and  undiminished  sympathy  with  my  anxieties, 
she  talked  of  that  husband  whose  projects  of  polar  dis- 
covery had  filled  her  imagination,  showed  me  his  bust  and 
their  little  girl,  and  a  flag  which  she  was  working  for  him, 
as  her  own  Berengaria  had  done  for  Kichard.  It  was 
poetry  in  action,  epic  poetry ;  and  I,  too,  sympathised  with 
the  devoted  wife.  But  I  saw,  what  at  that  time  her  own 
sister  had  not  suspected,  that  she  was  dying.  This  warm- 
hearted and  large-minded  woman  was  of  a  frame  and  tem- 
perament the  most  delicate  and  fragile.  The  agitation  of 
parting  was  too  much  for  her,  and  before  Captain  Frank- 
lin's expedition  was  out  of  the  Channel  she  was  dead."  * 
Referring  afterwards  to  the  success  of  '  Eienzi,'  Miss 
Mitford  adds : — "  Still  I  missed  her  whose  cheering  pro- 
gnostics had  so  often  spurred  me  on,  and  whose  latest 
interest  in  literature  had  been  excited  by  this  very  play."f 
The  expedition  of  Sir  John  Franklin  above  alluded  to 
was  that  of  1825,  when  he  left  England  to  undertake  his 
second  land  exploration  of  the  arctic  regions,  and  Mrs. 
Franklin  died  on  the  22nd  of  February  in  that  year. 

ANNA  LJSTITIA  BARBAULD. 

Anna  Lsetitia  Aikin  was  born  in  the  village  of  Kibworth- 
Harcourt,  in  Leicestershire,  on  the  20th  of  June  in  the 
year  1743,  the  same  month  and  year  in  which  King 
George  III.  first  saw  the  light.  This  coincidence  she 
always  remembered,  and  it  added  the  feeling  of  personal 
regard  to  her  principle  of  loyalty.  Her  father,  John 
Aikin,  D.D.,  a  learned  Socinian  minister,  then  kept  a 
*  Pp.  xxvii.-ix.  t  Ibid.,  p.  xxix. 


282  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

boys'  school ;  his  wife  was  the  daughter  of  the  parochial 
clergyman.  Anna  Lsetitia,  their  first-born  child,  evincing 
precocious  and  extraordinary  ability,  with  insatiable  eager- 
ness for  instruction,  learned  to  read  with  correctness  and 
fluency  by  the  time  that  she  was  two  years  and  a  half  old. 
She  continued  for  three  years  an  only  child.  Her  brother, 
John  Aikin,  afterwards  M.D.,  was  born  in  1746  ;  there  were 
no  other  brothers  or  sisters,  and  from  infancy  to  the  close 
of  life  he  looked  up  to  her  with  tender  admiration,  delighted 
in  sharing  her  pursuits,  and  in  stimulating  the  activity  of 
her  fine  intellect.  Her  father,  who  cherished  the  ordinary 
prejudice  against  learned  women,  yielding  at  last  to  her 
urgent  entreaties  and  to  the  conviction  of  her  masculine 
capacity  for  study,  assisted  her  in  the  acquirement  of  the 
Latin  and  Greek  languages,  and  allowed  her  the  free  use 
of  his  small  but  select  library. 

The  population  of  Kibworth-Harcourt  did  not  afford  the 
companionship  of  a  single  girl  of  her  own  age  and  station  ; 
and  until  she  had  attained  her  fifteenth  year,  her  mother 
and  grandmother  were  her  only  female  associates.  Her 
brother  was  not  educated  at  home,  she  was  carefully  ex- 
cluded from  intercourse  with  the  schoolboys,  and  conse- 
quently left  to  invent  her  own  amusements,  and  to  follow 
the  reflective  and  meditative  tendencies  of  her  keenly 
observant  mind.  Her  descriptive  and  humourous  poem, 
called  'Washing  Day,'  evidently  drawn  from  the  life, 
seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  reminiscences  of  the 
customs  and  manners  of  her  early  home. 

Natural  reserve  and  an  undemonstrative  disposition 
produced,  under  these  circumstances,  a  self-conscious  em- 
barrassment and  constraint,  which  rendered  her  always 
bashful  in  fashionable  society,  although  her  manners  were 
unexceptionable  in  courteous  gentleness,  and  her  conver- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  283 

sation  was  full  of  sweetness  and  power.  Rural  scenery, 
and  all  its  animate  and  inanimate  constituents  and  acces- 
sories, soothed  and  fed  her  desire  for  information,  while 
they  drew  forth  her  imaginative  power,  leading  her  to  a 
practical  acquaintance  with  natural  history,  and  to  the 
delineation  of  favourite  objects  with  her  pencil  as  well  as 
with  her  pen. 

She  read  and  re-read  the  books  to  which  she  had  access 
with  that  concentrated  attention  which  assimilated  their 
contents  with  the  mind;  they  shaped  her  principles  of 
action,  and  tinctured  for  ever  the  warp  and  woof  of 
thoughts  and  feelings.  Such  solitary  musings  and  grave 
companions  confirmed  her  natural  inclination  towards 
serious  and  earnest  considerations  of  religion ;  and  the 
vast  mysteries  of  existence  and  futurity  hung  their  stupen- 
dous shadows  over  all  her  earthly  prospects  and  pursuits, 
even  from  her  early  youth. 

In  the  year  1758,  when  fifteen  years  of  age,  Anna 
Laetitia  Aikin  experienced  a  change  of  scene  and  of  society 
which  produced  important  effects  upon  the  development 
of  her  character,  and  set  the  current  of  her  subsequent 
life.  Her  father,  Dr.  Aikin,  accepted  the  office  of  classical 
tutor  in  the  dissenting  academy  at  Warrington,  and  be- 
came a  resident  there  with  his  family.  The  origin  of  the 
Unitarian  community  in  England  dates  after  the  year 
1730  ;  about  which  period  the  chapels  and  endowments  of 
the  old  Presbyterians  passed,  by  the  gradual  declension 
of  the  ministers,  into  the  hands  of  men,  who,  holding  the 
main  tenets  of  Socinus,  asserted  the  unlimited  right  to 
think  what  they  pleased  and  to  say  what  they  thought ; 
deemed  faith  to  be  fanaticism,  and  human  reason  all-suffi- 
cient for  human  salvation,  without  Divine  revelation  and 
Divine  influence. 


284         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

In  1758,  the  elements  of  theological  change  wrought 
with  strong  effervescence  in  the  minds  of  the  tutors 
and  pupils  of  the  Warrington  academy ;  many  of  whom, 
in  succession,  distinguished  themselves  by  important 
discoveries  and  inventions  in  physics  and  mechanics. 
Among  those  men  of  restless  and  investigating  minds, 
and  the  adoring  female  votaries  of  their  respective  homes, 
her  social  and  friendly  nature  first  found  expansive  sym- 
pathy ;  and  there  she  entered  upon  that  competitive  arena 
which  must,  in  one  way  or  other,  be  found  and  trodden, 
before  the  conscious  possessor  of  mental  power  can  win  the 
acknowledgment  of  its  reality,  and  ascertain  its  compara- 
tive worth. 

From  Priestley  and  his  colleagues  she  acquired  a  theo- 
retical and  practical  knowledge  of  the  physical  sciences, 
watching  the  detection  or  elucidation  of  every  fact  which 
they  ascertained,  and  familiarizing  her  mind  with  their 
theories,  while  reverence  for  their  mental  superiority  sol- 
dered the  fetters  of  heretical  sectarianism.  General  ad- 
miration was  given  to  her  abilities  and  attainments.  Her 
personal  beauty,  fine  figure,  exquisite  complexion  of  red 
and  white,  delicately-chiselled  features,  dark-blue  eyes 
radiant  with  intelligent  vivacity,  an  air  of  perfect  health 
and  social  enjoyment,  sufficed  to  procure  pardon  from  the 
most  invidious  scholars;  while  the  absence  of  pride  and 
pretension  in  every  form,  and  the  charm  of  invariable 
affability,  secured  her  from  the  envy  of  her  female  ac- 
quaintance. She  zealously  identified  herself  with  the 
academy,  and  has  eulogized  it  in  her  poem  called  *  The 
Invitation.' 

About  the  close  of  the  year  1771,  her  brother,  having 
completed  his  professional  education,  returned  home  to 
practise  as  a  physician  at  Warrington.  His  presence 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

added  much  to  his  sister's  happiness,  and  proved  the  means 
of  rendering  her  talents  useful  to  the  public.  By  his 
advice,  pereuasion,  and  almost  compulsion,  she  published, 
in  1773,  a  collection  of  her  poems.  The  applause  of  the 
critical  reviewers  declared  her  unequivocal  success  as  an 
authoress,  and  no  less  than  four  editions  of  the  volume 
were  required  in  the  course  of  twelve  mouths 

Again,  in  the  same  year,  at  her  enterprising  brother's 
instigation,  she  collected  her  prose  compositions,  and 
allowed  them  to  be  published  with  his  own,  under  the  title 
of  *  Miscellaneous  Pieces  in  Prose,  by  J.  and  L.  A.  Aikin.' 
This  book  also  met  with  great  success,  and  served  to  esta- 
blish the  literary  reputatidn  of  both  the  brother  and  sister, 
while  it  largely  increased  their  circle  of  friends.  The 
celebrated  Mrs.  Montagu  and  some  other  ladies,  admiring 
the  high  moral  principles  and  great  abilities,  together 
with  the  peculiar  faculty  for  imparting  valuable  information 
manifested  in  the  writings  of  the  Warrington  heroine,  pro- 
posed to  her  the  establishment,  under  their  auspices  and 
her  control,  of  a  college  for  the  improved  education  of 
young  ladies  of  high  rank.  Her  rejection  of  the  flattering 
offer,  and  her  reasons  for  that  rejection,  afford  a  remarkable 
example  of  discretion  and  candour,  prove  the  thoroughness 
of  her  self-cultivation,  and  the  severely  just  estimate  which 
she  made  of  her  own  acquirements. 

After  demonstrating  that  the  proposed  literary  academy 
would  be  calculated  rather  "to  form  such  characters  as 
the  'Precieuses'  or  the  'Femmes  Savantes'  of  Moliere, 
than  good  wives  or  agreeable  companions,"  and  recom- 
mending a  preferable  system  of  instruction  for  girls  from 
nine  to  fourteen  years  of  age,  she  proceeds  to  declare  her 
own  unfitness  to  become  the  head  of  such  an  establishment, 
in  rnnscijuciicc  of  various  disqualifications.  In  the  course 


286  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

of  this  enumeration,  she  remarks, — "  But  suppose  I  were 
tolerably  qualified  to  instruct  those  of  my  own  rank,  con- 
sider that  these  [the  proposed  pupils]  must  be  of  a  class 
far  superior  to  those  I  have  lived  amongst  and  conversed 
with.  Young  ladies  of  that  rank  ought  to  have  their 
education  superintended  by  a  woman  perfectly  well-bred, 
from  whose  manner  they  might  catch  that  ease  and  grace- 
fulness which  can  only  be  learned  from  the  best  company ; 
and  she  should  be  able  to  direct  them,  and  judge  of  their 
progress  in  every  genteel  accomplishment.  I  could  not 
judge  of  their  music,  their  dancing ;  and  if  I  pretended  to 
correct  their  air,  they  might  be  tempted  to  smile  at  my 
own,  for  I  know  myself  remarkably  deficient  in  graceful- 
ness of  person,  in  my  air  and  manner,  and  in  the  easy 
graces  of  conversation.  Indeed,  whatever  the  kind  par- 
tiality of  my  friends  may  think  of  me,  there  are  few  things 
I  know  well  enough  to  teach  them  with  any  satisfaction, 
and  many  I  never  could  learn  myself."  How  strongly 
does  this  self-diffidence  contrast  with  the  presumptuous 
folly  of  those  superficial  smatterers,  who  eagerly  set  up 
to  teach,  as  it  were,  the  letter  "a,"  before  they  have  them- 
selves attained  to  the  knowledge  of  "  b  "  ! 

In  May,  1774,  Anna  Letitise  Aildn  married  the  object  of 
a  long  attachment,  the  Kev.  Kocheinont  Barbauld,  who, 
being  the  descendant  of  a  French  Protestant  refugee  and 
the  son  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Established  Church  of 
England,  chaplain  to  the  Princess  Mary  of  England, 
Landgravine  of  Hesse,  received  his  early  education  in 
Germany  and  France,  and  was  sent  to  complete  his  theo- 
logical studies  at  Warrington  with  a  view  to  his  taking 
Holy  Orders.  From  Priestley  and  his  disciples  Mr.  Bar- 
bauld soon  learned  to  doubt,  or  only  to  yield  half  credence 
to,  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  He  consequently  gave 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  287 

up  his  expectations  in  the  Church,  and,  having  no  private 
lortiiiu',  accepted  the  proffered  charge  of  a  Unitarian 
congregation  at  Palgrave,  near  Diss,  and  set  up  there  a 
boarding-school  for  the  sons  of  gontlemen. 

Uninterrupted  success  attended  Mr.  Barbauld's  laborious 
undertaking.  His  house  overflowed  with  pupils,  and  new 
ones  anxiously  awaited  opportunities  of  entrance,  attracted, 
not  only  by  the  scholastic  reputation  and  amiable  character 
of  the  master,  but  by  his  wife's  literary  celebrity,  and  the 
value  of  that  efficient  aid  which  she  rendered  to  the  in- 
stitution. To  her  apartment  the  classes  joyously  repaired 
for  lessons  in  geography,  expecting  renewed  entertainment 
and  delight.  She  seems  to  have  been  the  first,  or  at  least 
among  the  first,  who  combined  physical,  historical,  and 
ethnological  information  with  a  detailed  description  of  the 
earth,  its  superficial  divisions  and  statistics.  Nor  were  her 
lessons  in  English  composition  less  welcome. 

"  On  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays  the  boys  were  called 
in  separate  classes  to  her  apartment.  She  read  a  fable,  a 
short  story,  or  a  moral  essay  to  them  aloud,  and  then  sent 
them  back  into  the  school-room  to  write  it  out  on  the 
slates  in  their  own  words.  Each  exercise  was  separately 
overlooked  by  her,  the  faults  of  grammar  were  obliterated, 
the  vulgarisms  were  chastised,  the  idle  epithets  were  can- 
celled, and  a  distinct  reason  was  always  assigned  for  every 
correction,  so  that  the  arts  of  inditing  and  criticising  wrere 
in  some  degree  learned  together."  * 

This  is  the  testimony  of  a  distinguished  man,  who  owned 
her  as  "  the  mother  of  his  mind." 

Previous  to  every  summer  vacation  the  boys  used  to 
perform  a  play,  and  she  not  only  instructed  them  in  graceful 

*  Taylor's  Biographical  Notice  of  Sayers,  quoted  from  Aikin's  '  Memoir 
»t  Mrs.  Burbauld.' 


288  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

elocution,  and  wrote  suitable  prologues,  interludes,  and 
epilogues,  but  invented  decorations  and  stage  properties, 
contrived  dresses,  and  made  with  her  own  needle  and  cut 
out  with  her  own  scissors  all  sorts  of  fantastic  accessories. 

In  1775  Mrs.  Barbauld  produced  her  '  Devotional  Pieces.' 

In  1777  her  brother,  yielding  to  the  long-expressed  wish 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Barbauld,  gave  up  to  them  his  third  son, 
Charles,  as  the  child  of  their  adoption,  who  was  then  less 
than  two  years  old,  and  continued,  to  the  end  of  their 
lives,  to  regard  them  with  filial  duty  and  affection.  Little 
Charles  was  a  fresh  incentive  to  mental  activity,  and  for 
his  benefit  she  composed  those  '  Early  Lessons '  which  have 
been  so  extensively  useful.  Her  mind  was  remarkably 
practical:  she  was,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  a 
clever  woman,  and  has  never  been  surpassed  in  the  art  of 
devising  and  fitting  means  to  effect  a  proposed  end.  This 
book,  and  her  great  success  in  educational  training,  induced 
many  persons  to  entreat  her  to  take  charge  of  their  young 
children.  Ever  willing  to  do  good,  and  to  lighten  the 
burden  of  maintenance  and  future  provision  to  her  sen- 
sitive and  anxious  husband,  she,,  yielded  to  these  solicita- 
tions and  received  several  little  boys  as  her  peculiar  pupils. 
"Among  them  Lord  Denman  and  Sir  William  Grell  reflected 
honour  in  after  days  upon  their  instructress. 

To  awaken  and  direct  the  devotional  feelings  of  her 
little  Charles  and  his  companions,  she  composed  her '  Hymns 
in  Prose,'  which  indicate  a  marvellously-exact  acquaintance 
with  human  nature  in  its  infant  unfoldings.  It  is  ob- 
servable that  all  the  very  best  books  for  the  nursery,  and 
the  dearest  favourites  there,  approve  themselves  to  the 
judgment  and  interest  the  feelings  of  the  most  intelligent 
men. 

Lord  Daer,  the  three  other  sons  of  the  Earl  of  Selkirk, 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  289 

and  many  youths  of  noble  families,  were  among  the  Bar- 
guilds'  parlour-boarders  at  Palgrave,  retained  through  life 
the  warmest  gratitude  towards  their  instructors,  and  gave 
them  many  proofs  of  their  personal  friendship. 

Mrs.  Barbauld's  health  was  strong,  she  liked  active 
exercise,  and  was  a  great  pedestrian.  She  had  not  the 
nervous  sensibility  which  usually  belongs  to  the  tempera- 
ment of  genius,  and  for  many  years  she  sustained  the 
spirits  of  her  husband  in  their  mutual  toils  for  inde- 
pendence. They  won  not  only  a  pecuniary  meed  but 
large  accessions  of  fame  and  honour.  The  vacations  were 
spent  in  visiting  their  friends  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  or  in  London,  where  they  were  welcomed  by  the 
best  society,  both  literary  and  fashionable. 

Mrs.  Montagu,  always  retaining  her  early  admiration  for 
Mrs.  Barbauld,  introduced  her  to  all  the  most  eminent 
persons  of  the  time.  Her  conversation  was  appreciated 
even  among  those  who  made  talking  well  the  main  business 
of  their  lives,  and,  notwithstanding  her  shyness,  it  yielded 
up  the  varied  wealth  of  her  fertile  and  richly-cultivated 
mind.  So  great  was  the  ductility  of  that  mind  and  so 
various  were  the  forms  and  colours  it  could  assume,  while 
true  to  its  own  essential  nature,  as  to  remind  one  of 
Speusippus,  the  Greek  philosopher,  who  set  up  images  of 
the  Graces  in  the  Temple  of  the  Muses,  became  renowned 
among  the  learned  as  the  first  investigator  of  the  connec- 
tion between  the  physical  sciences,  and  popular  among  his 
fellow-countrymen  as  the  first  inventor  of  the  art  of  making 
a  very  convenient  sort  of  basket  out  of  bundles  of  twigs. 

At  the  end  of  eleven  laborious  years  Mrs.  Barbauld 

found  that  her  husband's  delicate  health  and  depressed 

spirits,  and  her  own  weary  frame,  required  an  absolute 

-ution  from    exertion.      They  determined  on  quitting 

u 


290  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Palgrave,  intending,  by  an  interval  of  relaxation,  to  re- 
create and  afterwards  brace  themselves  for  renewed  efforts. 
In  the  autumn  of  1785  they  left  England,  and  landing  at 
Calais  travelled  thence  to  Geneva,  and  spent  the  winter  in 
the  south  of  France.  In  the  spring  of  1786  they  again  set 
forth,  and,  after  a  long  sojourn  in  Paris,  returned  to 
England  in  June,  and  passed  the  remainder  of  the  year 
chiefly  in  London.  In  1787,  a  Unitarian  congregation 
at  Hampstead  having  invited  Mr.  Barbauld  to  be  their 
minister,  he  fixed  his  home  there  and  took  a  few  pupils, 
while  Mrs.  Barbauld  acted  as  daily  governess  to  a  young 
lady  in  the  vicinity.  In  1790  she  published  her  '  Address 
to  the  Opposers  of  the  Corporation  and  Test  Acts;'  in 

1791,  her  <  Poetical  Epistle  to  Mr.  Wilberforce,'  and  in 

1792,  her  'Bemarks  on  Gilbert  Wakefield's  Inquiry.'     In 
the  year  1792  also  her  brother  brought  out  the  first  volume 
of  the  'Evenings  at  Home.'     Mrs.  Barbauld  contributed 
fourteen  pieces  to  the  whole  work.     The  world  stands  in- 
debted to  their  joint  labour  for  some  of  the  earliest  and 
most  successful  attempts  ever  made  to  diffuse  among  the 
people  that  knowledge  of  scientific  truths  which  had  pre- 
viously been  the  exclusive  property  of  professional  students. 
This  was  done  in  a  manner  well  calculated  to  enlarge  the 
understanding  while  amusing  the  fancy  of  their  readers, 
rendering  recondite  information  a  source  at  once  of  im- 
provement and  pleasure.     They  aimed  at  teaching  things, 
at  conveying  the  tested  results  of  careful  inquiry,  in  such 
a  way  that  the  reader  might,  as  far  as  possible,  realize 
facts,  instead  of  committing  to  memory  a  mere  set  of 
words. 

In  1793  Mrs.  Barbauld  published  '  Sins  of  Government, 
Sins  of  the  Nation.'  In  ]  795  she  wrote  a  critical  essay, 
which  was  prefixed  to  an  illustrated  edition  of  Akenside's 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  291 

'Pleasures  of  Imagination,'  and  another  in  1797,  which 
WMS  prefixed  to  an  illustrated  edition  of  the  'Odes  of 
Collins.' 

In  the  year  1802  Mr.  Barbauld  resigned  his  ministerial 
charge  at  Hampstead  for  one  at  Newington  Green,  in  order 
that  his  wife  might  enjoy  the  society  of  her  brother  and 
his  family,  who  had  settled  in  that  neighbourhood. 

In  1804  Mrs.  Barbauld  published,  in  three  volumes, 
'  A  Selection  from  the  Spectator,  Tatler,  Guardian, 
and  Freeholder,'  with  a  preliminary  essay,  which  is 
deemed  the  best  of  her  literary  criticisms.  Her  next 
occupation,  undertaken  at  the  request  of  several  friends, 
was  the  examination  and  arrangement  of  '  Kichardson's 
Letters'  and  those  of  his  correspondents,  which  she  pub- 
lished in  six  volumes,  preceded  by  a  memoir  and  review  of 
his  works,  deemed  by  competent  judges  far  to  exceed  in 
worth  all  the  other  contents. 

Mr.  Barbauld  had  suffered  for  many  years  under  a 
morbid  melancholy,  amounting  to  insanity,  an  hereditary 
malady :  she  had  unremittingly  watched,  soothed,  and 
cheered  him,  with  vigilant  care  and  tenderness,  and  when 
he  died,  on  the  llth  of  November,  1808,  she  bewailed  the 
loss  of  her  first  object  of  earthly  devotion.  In  an  obituary 
notice,  which  appeared  in  *  The  Monthly  Kepository,'  she 
did  justice  to  his  talents  and  acquirements,  to  his  benevo- 
lent and  amiable  qualities,  and  to  the  unworldliness  and 
noble  simplicity  of  his  character ;  adding,  that  in  his  pulpit 
exhortations,  "  he  did  not  speak  the  language  of  any  party 
nor  exactly  coincide  with  the  systems  of  any."  Like  most 
of  his  persuasion,  he  was  a  Universalist. 

Her  poems  bear  many  traces  of  her  tender,  true,  and 
fervent  attachment  to  her  husband.  In  the  lines  addressed 
to  him  accompanying  '  A  Map  of  the  Land  of  Matrimony/ 

u  2 


292  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

which  she  had  invented,  comparing  the  lover  to  a  sailor 
she  inquires — 

"  And  say,  the  land  through  Fancy's  glass  descried, 

The  bright  Elysian  fields  her  pencil  drew,  • 
Has  time  the  dear  idea  realized  ? 

Or  are  her  optics  false,  her  tints  untrue  ? 

Oil,  say  they  are  not !    Though  life's  ceaseless  cares, 
Life's  ceaseless  toils  demand  thy  golden  hours, 

Tell  her  glad  heart  whose  hand  these  lines  confess, 
That  Peace  resides  in  Hymen's  happy  bowers." 

The  lines  addressed  to  him  November  14,  1778,  reveal 
how  pleasantly  she  amused  his  intervals  of  leisure.  The 
'Dirge'  of  November,  1808,  shows  how  she  loved  and 
mourned  him. 

After  Mr.  Barbauld's  death,  she  sought  employment  as 
a  refuge  from  sadness,  and  edited  a  selection  of  'The 
British  Novelists,'  for  which  she  wrote  an  introductory 
essay  and  biographical  and  critical  notices,  distinguished 
by  good  taste  and  accurate  judgment.  This  edition  came 
out  in  1810.  In  the  following  year  she  compiled  and 
published  '  The  Female  Speaker,'  and  produced  '  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Eleven,'  a  poem  which  excited  stormy  oppo- 
sition and  even  "  contumely  and  insult,"  by  the  melancholy 
view  which  it  presented  of  England's  political  situation, 
and  the  mournful  forebodings  of  the  country's  impending 
ruin  in  which  she  ventured  to  indulge. 

Accustomed  to  popular  favour  she  deeply  felt  the  tem- 
porary loss  of  it,  and  never  again  could  be  persuaded  to 
publish  any  of  the  compositions  which  her  fertile  mind 
continued  occasionally  to  produce,  confining  their  circula- 
tion to  the  homes  of  attached  friends. 

It  is  interesting  to  remark  the  social  links  which  unite 
passing  generations ;  to  find  Mrs.  Barbauld  writing  verses 
in  her  youth  to  the  memory  of  Mrs.  Kowe,  and  aspiring 
to  emulate  her  piety ;  associating  with  Dr.  Price,  Dr. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  293 

Priestley,  and  Dr.  Enfield  ;  with  Mrs.  Montagu,  Mrs.  Carter, 
and  Mrs.  Chapoue ;  with  Coleridge,  Joanna  Baillie,  Hannah 
More,  and  the  sisterhood  of  Barley  Wood,  at  different 
periods  of  her  history. 

Her  last  years  were  peaceful  and  happy.  The  brilliancy 
of  her  mind  remained  unclouded  to  the  last. 

Her  judicious  biographer,  Lucy  Aikin,  has  remarked 
that  — "  In  youth  the  power  of  her  imagination  was 
counterbalanced  by  the  activity  of  her  intellect,  which 
exercised  itself  in  rapid,  but  not  unprofitable,  excursions 
over  almost  every  field  of  knowledge.  In  age,  when  this 
activity  abated,  imagination  appeared  to  exert  over  her  an 
undiminished  sway." 

The  prevalence  of  this  faculty  was  evinced  alike  by  her 
writings,  her  conversation,  and  her  increasing  delight  in 
the  society  of  the  young,  especially  if  they  were  beautiful. 

In  December,  1822,  Dr.  John  Aikin,  her  only  near  rela- 
tion and  dearest  friend,  died  of  a  lingering  decline,  and 
left  her  to  the  loneliness  of  heart  which  the  survivors  of 
the  companions  of  their  youth  must  experience.  Her 
sister-in-law,  her  adopted  son,  his  family,  and  other  de- 
scendants of  her  brother,  together  with  many  attached  and 
admiring  friends,  still  felt  her  extraordinary  powers  of 
interesting  and  pleasing,  and  cheered  her  with  affectionate 
attentions.  She  ever  was  uprightly  and  sincerely  what 
her  high  moral  principles  taught  her  to  be :  her  benevo- 
lence, always  great,  augmented  to  the  last,  and  the  sorrows 
and  infirmities  of  lengthened  life  softened  and  elevated  her 
noble  heart  more  and  more. 

An  asthma  wore  her  strength  gently  down,  by  almost 
imperceptible  degrees,  inability  for  exertion  subsided  into 
languor,  and,  on  the  9th  of  March,  1825,  she  passed  away 
in  the  eighty-second  year  of  her  age. 


294  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

As  a  writer,  Mrs.  Barbauld  was  distinguished  by  exten- 
sive and  exact  knowledge,  by  sagacious  and  acute  powers 
of  original  thought,  a  lively  and  inventive  fancy,  a  copious 
treasury  of  English  diction,  a  correct  application  of  words, 
and  a  polished  brightness  of  style  more  generally  attained 
by  the  masculine  than  feminine  intellect.  Her  Essay 
'  Against  Inconsistency  in  our  Expectations '  is  an  ad- 
mirable and  spirited  piece  of  reasoning ;  worthy,  in  acumen, 
experience  of  human  life,  and  able  execution,  of  John  Foster 
himself.  Her  Essay  *  On  Monastic  Institutions '  would  do 
credit,  not  in  the  inculcation  of  principles,  but  in  compre- 
hensive grasp  and  rhetorical  power,  to  a  University  Pro- 
fessor of  Modern  History.  Her  subtle  discrimination  and 
skill  in  analysis  show  themselves  advantageously  in  '  An 
Inquiry  into  those  kinds  of  Distress  which  excite  agreeable 
Sensations :'  to  which  is  appended  the  beautiful  allegory 
of  «  Pity.' 

Her  '  Essay  on  Prejudice '  is  an  able  piece  of  reasoning. 
'  The  Hill  of  Science '  might  have  passed  unquestioned  by 
the  keenest  critics  as  an  allegory  worthy  of  Addison's 
elegant  mind,  and  of  winning  even  for  him  additional 
glory. 

Mrs.  Barbauld's  letters  to  her  brother  are  as  well  written, 
as  full  of  courtesy  and  pleasant  anecdotes,  of  wit,  and 
thought,  as  if  elaborately  composed  for  the  perusal  of  a 
Montagu  or  a  Johnson.  Themes  of  worth  and  masterly 
diction  belonged  to  her  easiest  and  most  familiar  inter- 
course, and  all  were  interspersed  with  airy  brightness  of 
fancy,  which  gave  beauty  to  every  tiny  mote  it  touched  in 
passing  by. 

In  September,  1787,  she  makes  a  remark,  which,  trifling 
in  itself,  marks  the  history  of  habitudes  in  England.  "  Did 
you  ever  see  seguars — leaf  tobacco  rolled  up,  of  the  length 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  295 

of  one's  finger,  which  they  light  and  smoke  without  a  pipe  ? 
He  [a  young  Spaniard]  uses  them." 

In  1791,  she  relates  that  Mrs.  Montagu,  having  invited 
the  Marchioness  de  Boufflers  and  her  daughter  to  dinner, 
"After  making  her  wait  till  six,  the  Marchioness  came, 
and  made  an  apology  for  her  daughter,  that,  just  as  she 
was  going  to  dress,  she  was  seized  with  a  dugout  monientande 
du  monde,  and  could  not  wait  on  her."  Thus,  with  facility, 
she  caught  and  communicated  the  spirit  of  variety  and 
whim  to  enliven  grave  dissertation. 

In  a  letter  of  still  earlier  date — February  9,  1786— 
written  from  Aix  to  her  brother,  the  following  passage 
refers  to  Mesmeric  practices,  which  for  the  last  ten  years 
(1850-60)  have  been  fashionable  favourites  in  England : — 
"  If  you  have  a  mind  to  strike  a  good  stroke  in  London, 
introduce  magnetism ;  it  is  in  France  the  folly  of  the  day. 
There  is  a  society  at  Marseilles  for  that  purpose  composed 
of  gentlemen.  They  boast  they  can  lay  asleep  when  they 
please,  and  for  as  long  as  they  please ;  and  that  during  this 
sleep,  or  trance,  the  mind  can  see  the  operations  going 
forward  in  the  corporeal  machine,  and  predict  future 
events.  One  of  them  offered  to  try  his  skill  on  Mr.  Bar- 
bauld;  but,  after  a  long  and  unpleasant  operation  of 
rubbing  the  temples  and  forehead,  he  was  obliged  to  desist 
without  success.  Mr.  Howard*  will  tell  you,  however, 
they  operate  better  at  Lyons,  as  he  saw  several  women  at 
the  hospital  put  to  sleep  in  a  minute  by  only  passing  the 
hand  over  the  forehead."  t 

The  pseudo-romantic  fragment  called  'Sir  Bertrand,' 
long  believed  to  have  been  Mrs.  Barbauld's,  is  assigned  by 

*  The  Philanthropist. 

t  See  '  Works  of  Mrs.  Barbauld,  with  a  Memoir  by  Lucy  Aikin,'  2  vols. 


8vo. 


2(J(J          LITEBAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Miss  Lucy  Aikin  to  Dr.  Aikin.  Her  poems  are  all  of  them 
imbued  with  indisputable  taste  and  genius.  In  the  form 
of  each,  perhaps,  may  be  discerned  a  likeness  to  some 
preceding  composition  of  great  excellence,  written  by  a 
contemporary  or  predecessor :  yet  no  servile  copies  or 
plagiarisms  occur.  Take,  for  instance,  her  Odes  to  Spring 
and  to  Content,  evidently  suggested  by  the  Odes  of  Col- 
lins, and  wrought  out  upon  his  plan  in  her  own  way,  and 
according  to  the  free 'tenor  of  her  own  thoughts. 

'  The  Mouse's  Petition,'  known  by  heart  to  half  the 
population  of  England,  unfit  as  it  is  for  children,  has,  in 
spite  of  the  dissertation  on  the  transmigration  of  souls,  so 
much  lively  sense,  compassionate  feeling,  and  cleverness, 
that  it  continues  a  general  favourite.  The  watchword 
Liberty,  at  the  period  of  its  first  publication,  tended  to 
promote  its  popularity.  The  poor  little  creature  which  is 
supposed  to  utter  the  petition  was  kept  all  night  in  a  trap 
by  Dr.  Priestley,  that  he  might  try  experiments  upon  it 
with  the  different  sorts  of  air  which  he  had  discovered. 

A  few  of  her  songs  are  not  free  from  the  blameable 
manner  of  expression  usual  among  authors  in  her  early 
days  when  writing  on  amatory  subjects. 

In  her  poem  called  'Eighteen  Hundred  and  Eleven,' 
foreboding  her  country's  fall,  Mrs.  Barbauld  has  anticipated 
for  Anglo-Americans  such'  a  survey  of  its  ruins  as  Lord 
Macaulay  deputes  to  a  New  Zealander. 

'*  Yet  then  the  ingenuous  youth  whom  Fancy  fires 
With  pictured  glories  of  illustrious  sires, 
With  duteous  zeal  their  pilgrimage  shall  take 
From  the  Blue  Mountains  or  Ontario's  Lake, 
With  fond  adoring  steps  to  press  the  sod 
By  statesmen,  sages,  poets,  heroes  trod  ; 
On  Isis'  banks  to  draw  inspiring  air  ; 
From  Kunymede  to  send  the  patriot's  prayer ; 
In  pensive  thought  where  Cam's  slow  waters  wind 
To  meet  those  shades  that  ruled  the  realms  of  mind ; 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

In  silent  halls  to  sculptured  marbles  bow, 

And  hang  fivsli  wtvaths  round  Newton's  awful  brow. 

Oft  shall  they  seek  some  peasant's  homely  shed, 

Who  toils  unconscious  of  the  mighty  dead, 

To  ask  where  Avon's  winding  waters  stray, 

And  thence  a  knot  of  wild  flowers  bear  away  ; 

Anxious  inquire  where  Clarkson,  friend  of  man, 

Or  all-accomplished  Jones  his  race  began  ; 

If  of  the  modest  mansion  aught  remains 

Where  Heaven  and  Nature  prompted  Cowper's  strains  ; 

Where  Roscoe,  to  whose  patriot  breast  belong 

The  Koman  virtue  and  the  Tuscan  song, 

Led  Ceres  to  the  bleak  and  barren  moor 

Where  Ceres  never  gained  a  wreath  before  : 

With  curious  search  their  pilgrim  steps  shall  rove 

By  many  a  ruined  tower  and  proud  alcove, 

Shall  listen  for  those  strains  that  soothed  of  yore 

Thy  rock,  stern  Skiddaw  ;  and  thy  fall,  Lodore ; 

Feast  with  Dun  Edin's  classic  brow  their  sight, 

And,  '  visit  Melross  by  the  pale  moonlight.' 

But  who  their  mingled  feelings  shall  pursue 

When  London's  faded  glories  rise  to  view  ? 

The  mighty  city,  which  by  every  road 

In  floods  of  people  poured  itself  abroad  ; 

Ungirt  by  walls,  irregularly  great, 

No  jealous  drawbridge,  and  no  closing  gate." 

Not  the  incident  of  the  peasant  only,  but  the  whole  tone 
and  tenor  of  this  highly-finished  poem  may  certainly  be 
traced  to  Mrs.  Barbauld's  acquaintance  with  the  Latin 
poets  and  historians,  and  with  those  of  ancient  Greece. 
The  lines — 

"I  see  the  long  and  linked  chain  of  woes 
Rippling  the  deep  and  drawing  on  my  Troy 
Wide- wasting  storms  and  deluges  of  flame  ;" 

from  Lord  Royston's  translation  of  Lycophron's  '  Cas- 
sandra/ might  have  made  no  inappropriate  motto  for  her 
inauspicious  prognostications:  but,  happily,  her  fate  and 
that  of  Priam's  daughter  were  reversed ;  the  contempo- 
raries of  the  Princess  scorned  to  believe  the  truths  she 
uttered:  the  contemporaries  of  the  schoolmistress  were 
alarmed  by  her  erroneous  denunciations.  The  Rip  Van 
Winkle  of  our  own  time,  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  the 


298  LITEKABY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Middle  Ages,  and  the  Cretan  Epimenides,  all  seem  to 
have  derived  their  somniferous  being  from  that  desire 
after  a  knowledge  of  approximating  futurity  which  is 
inherent  in  human  nature ;  that  all-pervading  self-con- 
sciousness of  spiritual  immortality,  which,  fully  assured 
that  it  shall  then  be,  longs  also  to  be  then  capable  of 
knowing  the  issues  and  effects  of  those  things  with  whose 
embryo  and  early  growth  it  has  been  conversant. 
The  pathos  of  the  following  lines  few  hearts  can 

resist : — 

THE  DEATH  OF  THE  VIRTUOUS. 

"  Sweet  is  the  scene  when  virtue  dies  ! 

When  sinks  a  righteous  soul  to  rest, 
How  mildly  beam  the  closing  eyes, 

How  gently  heaves  the  expiring  breast ! 
So  fades  a  summer  cloud  away  ; 

So  sinks  the  gale  when  storms  are  o'er  ; 
So  gently  shuts  the  eye  of  day  ; 

So  dies  a  wave  along  the  shore. 
Triumphant  shines  the  victor's  brow, 

Fanned  by  some  angel's  purple  wing  ; 
Where  is,  oh  Grave,  thy  victory  now  ? 

And  where,  insidious  Death,  thy  sting? 
Farewell,  conflicting  joys  and  fears, 

Where  light  and  shade  alternate  dwell  ; 
How  bright  the  unchanging  morn  appears  ! 

Farewell !  inconstant  world,  farewell ! 
Its  duty  done,  as  sinks  the  clay, 

Light  from  its  load  the  spirit  flies  ; 
While  heaven  and  earth  combine  to  say, 

Sweet  is  the  scene  when  virtue  dies  !  " 

Many  of  her  hymns  are  fine  specimens  of  devotional 
poetry.  In  the  first  of  them,  which  expresses  only  what 
philosophical  deists  of  any  age  or  country  might  feel,  there 
are  some  admirable  passages,  and  the  four  concluding  lines 
are  deeply  impressive  : — 

"Cease,  cease  your  songs,  the  daring  flight  control, 
Eevere  Him  in  the  stillness  of  the  soul ; 
With  silent  duty  meekly  bend  before  Him, 
And  deep  within  your  inmost  hearts  adore  Him." 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  299 

The  second  is  an  able  paraphrase  of  Habakkuk,  iii.  17, 
18 : — "  Although  the  fig-tree  shall  not  blossom,"  &c. 

The  third, '  For  Easter  Sunday/  if  two  half  lines  were 
expunged,  would  be  altogether  excellent.  The  objection- 
able words  look  like  a  guarded  and  subsequent  interpola- 
tion of  the  sectarian  Shibboleth.  The  devotional  spirit, 
the  faith,  hope,  and  charity  of  the  verses  breathe  essential 
Christianity.  Few  worshippers  in  the  Established  Church 
of  England  are  unacquainted  with  the  animating  strain — 
"  Again  the  Lord,of  Life  and  Light," 

and  fewer  still  suspect  its  origin,  or  detect  its  alterations. 

Her  4th  hymn  is  likewise  used  in  orthodox  congrega- 
tions, and  contains  only  one  suspicious  phrase. 

The  5th  manifests  a  painful  acquaintance  with  the  be- 
setting temptations  of  human  life,  and  might  serve  as  a 
song  in  Bunyan's  'Pilgrim's  Progress/  It  has  faults  of 
omission,  but  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes. 

The  6th, '  Pious  Friendship,'  is  very  beautiful : — 

"  How  blest  the  sacred  tie  that  binds 
lu  union  sweet  according  ininds  ! 
How  swift  the  heavenly  course  they  run, 
Whose  hearts,  whose  faith  and  hope  are  one  ! 
To  each,  the  soul  of  each  how  dear, 
What  jealous  love,  what  holy  fear  ! 
How  doth  the  generous  flame  within 
Refine  from  earth  and  cleanse  from  sin ! 

Their  streaming  tears  together  flow 
For  human  guilt  and  mortal  woe  ; 
Their  ardent  prayers  together  rise, 
Like  mingling  flames  in  sacrifice. 
Together  both  they  seek  the  place 
Where  God  reveals  his  awful  face ; 
How  high,  how  strong,  their  raptures  swell, 
There  's  none  but  kindred  souls  can  tell. 
Nor  shall  the  glowing  flame  expire 
When  jiature  droops  her  sickening  tire  ; 
Then  shall  they  meet  in  realms  above, 
A  heaven  of  joy  -  because  of  love." 


300  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

The  7th,  '  Come,  said  Jesus'  sacred  voice,'  is  a  touching 
paraphrase  of  the  Saviour's  invitation  to  suffering  and 
weary  sinners. 

The  8th  hymn,  <Lo,  where  a  crowd  of  pilgrims  toil,' 
could  have  been  written  only  by  a  person  earnestly  intent 
on  passing  through  earthly  probation  to  heaven.  Dr. 
Priestley  would  certainly  have  disapproved  of  the  line— 

"  Our  country  is  Emmanuel's  land," 

for  Mrs.  Barbauld  was  much  too  well  informed  to  use  that 
name  in  ignorance  of  its  meaning. 

The  9th,  'Joy  to  the  followers  of  the  Lord!'  is  full  of 
the  heart's  deep  and  seldom  uttered  experience  of  bodily 
affliction  and  spiritual  peace,  entering  even  into  the  mar- 
tyr's tortures,  when — 

"  The  throbbing  pulse  beats  high 
To  rapture  mixed  with  agony. 

A  tenderer,  softer,  form  it  wears, 
Dissolved  hi  love,  dissolved  in  tears, 
When  humble  souls  a  Saviour  greet, 
And  sinners  clasp  the  mercy-seat. 
'T  is  joy  e'en  here,  a  budding  flower, 
Struggling  with  snows,  and  storm,  and  shower, 
And  waits  the  moment  to  expand, 
Transplanted  to  its  native  land." 

The  Pastoral  Hymn,  No.  10,  '  Gentle  Pilgrim,  tell  me 
why,'  and  the  Sabbath  Hymns  11  and  12,  complete  the 
series,  which  is  unequalled  in  merit  by  any  devotional 
poems  of  her  female  predecessors  and  contemporaries. 

The  Life,  Letters,  and  Poems  of  Mrs.  Barbauld  incite 
and  enforce  the  conviction  that  her  own  religious  belief 
was  in  reality  more  scriptural  and  orthodox  than  the  tenets 
usually  held  by  her  sect ;  that  she  did  acknowledge  the 
heinous  guilt  of  sin  in  the  heart's  declension  from  God, 
did  rely  upon  the  Divine  Atonement,  and  did  experience 
that  renovating  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  which  is 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  301 

righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  immortal.  Her  essay  entitled 
•Thoughts  on  the  Devotional  Tastes  of  Sects  and  Esta- 
blishments,' is  remarkable  not  only  for  its  great  ability, 
but  for  that  glaring  inconsistency  between  her  doctrinal 
notions  and  her  fervent  devotional  feelings,  which  runs 
through  all  her  religious  writings.  Her  heart  could  not 
receive  the  dogmas  which  her  biassed  mind  adopted.  Her 
notional  religion  was  Unitarian,  her  experimental  piety 
was  Trinitarian,  and  true  Christianity. 

i 
LADY  ANNE  BARNARD. 

Lady  Anne  Lindsay,  eldest  daughter  of  James,  fifth 
Earl  of  Balcarres,  was  born  December  8,  1750,  was 
married  in  1793,  to  Sir  Andrew  Barnard,  librarian  to 
King  George  ILL,  and  died  childless  May  8,  1825. 

Among  the  few  poems  which  she  wrote  was  the  ballad 
of  *  Auld  Eobin  Gray,'  which  she  composed,  about  the  year 
1771,  to  an  ancient  Scottish  air.  It  became  popular 
immediately,  but  Lady  Anne  kept  her  authorship  a  secret 
for  fifty  years,  and  then  revealed  it  in  a  letter  to  a  very 
suitable  confessor,  Sir  Walter  Scott.  In  the  early  days  of 
Lady  Anne  the  prevalence  of  female  authorship  in  the 
middle  classes  had  provoked  aristocratic  prejudices  against 
it,  and  high-born  women  were  considered  to  degrade  them- 
selves when  assuming  the  position  of  those  whom  circum- 
stances subjected  to  their  patronage.  Hence,  doubtless, 
arose  the  motive  for  concealment ;  and  to  the  change  in 
public  opinion  wrought  by  the  passing  of  half  a  century 
may  probably  be  traced  Lady  Anne's  final  avowal. 
AULD  ROBIN  GRAY. 

"  When  the  sheep  are  in  the  fauld,  and  the  kye  at  hame, 
And  a'  the  warld  to  sleep  are  gane, 
The  waes  o'  my  heart  fa'  in  showers  frae  iny  ee, 
When  my  gudeman  lies  sound  by  me. 


302  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Young  Jamie  loo'd  me  weel,  and  socht  me  for  his  bride, 
But  saving  a  crown  he  had  naething  else  beside  ; 
To  mak  that  crown  a  pund  my  Jamie  gaed  to  sea, 
And  the  crown  and  the  pund  were  baith  for  me. 
He  hadna  been  awa  a  week  but  only  twa, 
When  mother  she  fell  sick,  and  the  cow  was  stown  awa, 
My  father  brak  his  arm,  and  young  Jamie  at  the  sea, 
And  auld  Robin  Gray  cam'  a  courtin'  me. 

My  father  couldna  work,  and  my  mother  couldna  spin, 
I  toiled  day  and  nicht,  but  their  bread  I  couldna  win, 
Auld  Rob  maintained  them  baith,  and  wi'  tears  in  his  ee, 
Said,  Jenny,  for  their  sakes,  oh,  marry  me ! 

My  heart  it  said  Nay,  for  I  looked  for  Jamie  back, 
But  the  wind  it  blew  high,  and  the  ship  it  was  a  wreck  ; 
The  ship  it  was  a  wreck, — why  didna  Jamie  dee  ? 
Or  why  do  I  live  to  say,  Wae's  me  ! 

My  father  argued  sair,  my  mother  didna  speak, 
But  she  lookit  in  my  face  till  my  heart  was  like  to  break, 
Sae  they  gied  him  my  hand,  though  my  heart  was  in  the  sea, 
And  auld  Robin  Gray  was  gudeman  to  me. 

I  hadna  been  a  wife  a  week  but  only  four, 
When  sitting  sae  mournfully  at  the  door, 
I  saw  my  Jamie's  wraith,  for  I  couldna  think  it  he, 
Till  he  said,  I've  come  back  for  to  marry  thee. 

Oh,  sair  did  we  greet,  and  muckle  did  we  say, 
We  took  but  ae  kiss,  and  we  tore  ourselves  away, 
I  wish  I  were  dead,  but  I'm  no  like  to  dee, 
And  why  do  I  live  to  say,  Wae's  me ! 

I  gang  like  a  ghaist,  and  I  carena  to  spin, 
I  daurna  think  on  Jamie,  for  that  wad  be  a  sin. 
But  I'll  do  my  best  a  gude  wife  to  be, 
For  auld  Robin  Gray  is  kind  unto  me." 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  303 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

THE  POETESSES. 

A.D.  1825-1833. 

Helen-Maria  Williams  —  The  Margravine  of  Anspach. 


"  Each  interval  of  night, 
Was  graced  with  many  an  undulating  light." 

COWPER'S  '  Table  Talk.' 


HELEN-MARIA  WILLIAMS. 

THE  author  of  this  Essay  regrets  that  she  can  add  very  few 
particulars  to  the  scanty  and  vague  accounts  of  Helen- 
Maria  Williams,  given  in  the  Biographical  Dictionaries. 
Time  and  trouble  have  not  been  spared,  and  many  probable 
sources  of  information  have  been  searched  in  vain.  The 
following  are  the  generally  received  facts  of  her  personal 
history.  She  was  a  native  of  the  northern  part  of  England, 
and  born  in  the  year  1762.  Dr.  Kippis  was  her  early  friend, 
and  he  first  ushered  her  into  the  literary  world.  Craik,  in 
his  '  Sketches/  mentions  Helen-Maria  Williams  as  having 
published  some  volumes  of  verse  in  1782,  and  the  two 
or  three  following  years.  Her  *  Edward  and  Eltrada,' 
'  Various  Poems,'  and  '  Julia,  a  Novel,'  belong  to  this  period. 
In  1790,  she  was  living  in  Paris;  and  in  1794,  being 
still  there,  she  suffered  imprisonment,  and  narrowly  escaped 
the  guillotine,  by  which  many  of  her  most  intimate  friends 
of  the  Girondist  party  suffered  death.  Being  released,  she 


304  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

fled  to  Switzerland,  and  remained  there  until  1796,  when 
she  returned  to  Paris.  Her  '  Letters  from  France,'  de- 
tailing the  progress  of  the  first  French  revolution,  excited 
great  contemporary  interest.  In  the  Fourth  Letter  of  her 
'  Sketches  of  Manners  and  Opinions  in  the  French  Kepublic 
towards  the  close  of  the  XYIIIth  century,'  published  in 
1801,  she  relates  the  sudden  death  of  a  beloved  sister, 
gifted  with  most  amiable  qualities,  and  possessing  many 
accomplishments ;  leaving  a  family  of  little  children,  and  a 
sorrowing  husband  and  mother  :  and  she  also  mentions  the 
arrangements  made  to  secure  a  separate  grave  and  Christian 
rites,  at  a  period  when  democratic  frenzy  allotted  all  the 
corpses  of  a  district  to  be  cast  into  a  common  burial  pit. 

From  the  same  volumes  it  appears  that  Helen-Maria 
Williams  was  fond  of  riding  on  horseback,  kept  the  best 
company,  and  interested  herself,  heart  and  soul,  in  the 
course  of  those  fearful  political  occurrences  which  shook 
the  states  of  the  European  continent  like  a  succession  of 
earthquakes.  Conversant  with  the  ancient  and  modern 
history  and  geography  of  Europe,  seeing  and  treading  the 
localities  of  many  of  the  most  memorable  events  of  her 
troublous  times,  and  obtaining  a  knowledge  of  political 
conjunctures,  either  as  an  eye-witness,  or  from  persons 
who  took  part  in  them,  she  was  enabled  to  draw  some 
curious  historical  parallels,  to  note  down  anecdotes  and 
witticisms,  and  to  relate  the  course  and  current  of  events, 
in  a  style  distinguished  by  correctness  and  perspicuity  of 
expression,  often  rising  into  eloquence,  and  always  full  of 
earnestness. 

In  1815  she  published  her  i  Narrative  of  Events  in 
France/  On  the  15th  of  December,  1827,  she  died  at 
Paris.* 

*  See  'Annual  Kegister,'  1827,  p.  262. 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF    ENGLAND.  305 

Besides  the  works  already  named,  she  wrote  and  pub- 
lished a  translation  of  the  *  Personal  Narrative '  of  Hum- 
boldt  and  Bonpland. 

The  following  verses,  perhaps  her  best,  are  now  printed 
from  an  autograph  copy,  which  was  for  many  years  the 
property  of  Sydney  Lady  Morgan.  None  but  an  eye- 
witness, susceptible  of  receiving,  and  capable  of  communi- 
cating the  impressions  of  nature's  sublimest  aspects,  could 
have  written  them. 

* 

A  HYMN.     WRITTEN  AMONG  THE  ALPS. 

"  Creation's  God  !  with  thought  elate 

Thy  haiid  divine  I  see, 
Impressed  on  scenes  where  all  is  great, 

Where  all  is  full  of  Thee  ! 
Where  stern  the  Alpine  mountains  raise 

Their  heads  of  massive  snow, 
Whence  on  the  rolling  storm  I  gaze 

That  hangs  how  far  below  ! 
Where  on  some  bold  stupendous  height 

The  eagle  sits  alone, 
Or  soaring  wings  his  sullen  flight 

To  haunts  yet  more  his  own ; 
Where  the  sharp  rock  the  chamois  treads, 

Or  slippery  summit  scales, 
Or  where  the  whitening  snow-bird  spreads 

Her  plumes  to  icy  gales  ; 
Where  the  rude  cliff's  steep  column  glows 

With  morning's  tint  of  blue, 
Or  evening  on  the  glacier  throws 

The  rose's  blushing  hue  ; 
Or  where  by  twilight's  softer  light 

The  mountain-shadow  bends, 
And  sudden  casts  a  partial  night 

As  black  its  form  descends ; 
Where  the  full  ray  of  noon  alone 

Down  the  deep  valley  falls  ; 
Or  where  the  sunbeam  never  shone 

Between  its  rifted  walls  ; 
Where  cloudless  regions  calm  the  soul, 

Bid  mortal  cares  be  still, 
Can  passion's  wayward  wish  control 

And  rectify  the  will  : 


306  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Where  'midst  some  vast  expanse  the  mind, 

Which  swelling  virtue  fires, 
Forgets  that  earth  it  leaves  behind 

And  to  its  heaven  aspires  ; 
Where  far  along  the  desert  sphere 

Kesounds  no  creature's  call, 
And  undisturbing  mortal  ear 

The  avalanches  fall ; 
Where  rushing  from  their  snowy  source, 

The  daring  torrents  urge 
Their  loud-ton'd  waters'  headlong  course, 

And  lift  their  feather'd  surge  ; 
Where  swift  the  lines  of  light  and  shade 

Flit  o'er  the  lucid  lake, 
Or  the  shrill  winds  its  breast  invade, 

And  its  green  billows  wake  ; 
Where  on  the  slope,  with  speckled  dye, 

The  pigmy  herds  I  scan, 
Or  sooth'd,  the  scattered  chalets  spy, 

The  last  abodes  of  man ; 
Or  where  the  flocks  refuse  to  pass, 

And  the  lone  peasant  mows, 
Fixed  on  his  knees,  the  pendent  grass, 

Which  down  the  steep  he  throws  ; 
Or  where  the  dang'rous  pathway  leads 

High  o'er  the  gulf  profound, 
From  whence  the  shrinking  eye  recedes, 

Nor  finds  repose  around  ; 
Where  red  the  mountain-ash  reclines 

Along  the  clefted  rock, 
Where  firm  the  dark  unbending  pines 

The  howling  tempest  mock ; 
Where,  level  with  the  ice-ribb'd  bound, 

The  yellow  harvests  glow, 
Or  vales  with  purple  vines  are  wound 

Beneath  impending  snow ; 
Where  the  rich  minerals  catch  the  ray, 

With  varying  lustre  bright, 
And  glittering  fragments  strew  the  way 

With  sparks  of  liquid  light ; 
Or  where  the  moss  forbears  to  creep, 

Where  loftier  summits  rear 
Their  untrod  snows,  and  frozen  sleep 

Locks  all  the  uncoloured  year  ; 
In  every  scene,  where  every  hour 

Sheds  some  terrific  grace, 
In  nature's  vast  o'erwhelming  power, 

Thee,  Thee,  my  God,  I  trace  ! 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  307 

So  let  me  in  the  moral  scene 

Thy  hand  directing  see, 
And  'midst  its  darkest  tempest  lean 

With  confidence  on  Th«  •-•  ! 

'Midst  earth's  vain  joys  or  passing  woes, 

Alike  in  good  or  ill, 
Be  the  first  bliss  my  bosom  knows 

Submission  to  Thy  will." 


ELIZABETH  MARGRAVINE  OF  ANSPACH. 

The  Lady  Elizabeth  Berkeley,  youngest  daughter  of 
Augustus,  fourth  Earl  of  Berkeley,  was  bora  in  December, 
1750.  Her  father  died  when  she  was  only  four  years  old, 
and  her  mother,  a  daughter  of  Henry  Drax,  Esq.,  of 
Charborough,  married  Robert  Earl  Nugent,  three  years 
afterwards.  Lady  Elizabeth  had  consequently  almost  an 
orphan's  lot,  and  wanted  that  tender  home  training  of  the 
affections  for  which  there  is  no  compensation. 

On  the  2nd  of  May,  1767,  being  little  more  than  sixteen 
years  of  age,  this  clever  and  accomplished  girl  was  married 
to  William  Craven,  Esq.,  who,  two  years  afterwards  suc- 
ceeded to  his  uncle's  peerage  as  sixth  Baron  Craven.  Seven 
children,  three  sons  and  four  daughters,  were  the  offspring 
of  this  marriage.  Lady  Craven  was  beautiful  and  amiable, 
her  manners  were  fascinating,  and  her  powers  of  varying 
and  enlivening  the  monotony  of  daily  existence  by  the 
activity  of  her  inventive  faculties  were  admirable. 

Her  Autobiography,  superficially  and  evasively  written, 
assumes  an  air  of  simplicity  worthy  of  an  avowed  imitator 
of  the  guileless  innocence  of  her  aunt  Lady  Suffolk's  man- 
ner, and  throws  little  true  light  upon  the  cause  of  her 
domestic  disquietudes.  From  other  sources,  however,  it  is 
evident  that  if  Lord  Craven  had  his  faults,  Lady  Craven 
was  not  devoid  of  her  provoking  eccentricities ;  and  the 
separation  which  ensued  in  1781,  after  thirteen  years  of 

x  2 


308  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

wedded  union,  cast  discredit  alike  upon  her  conjugal  and 
maternal  character. 

Lady  Craven,  on  resigning  her  domestic  offices,  made  a 
tour  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  through  several  parts 
of  Asia,  sojourning  at  Paris,  Madrid,  Lisbon,  Vienna,  Berlin, 
Warsaw,  St.  Petersburgh,  Rome,  Florence,  Naples,  and 
Anspach. 

In  1787,  she  descended  into  the  grotto  of  Antiparos, 
being  the  first  woman  known  to  have  hazarded  that  achieve- 
ment. In  1789,  she  published  a  series  of  letters  relating 
her  Travels  through  the  Crimea  to  Constantinople. 

On  the  26th  of  September,  1791,  Lord  Craven  died ; 
and  on  the  13th  of  October,  in  the  same  year,  his  widow 
married  His  Serene  Highness  Christian-Frederick,  Margrave 
of  Brandenburgh,  Anspach,  and  Bayreuth,  who,  having 
sold  his  small  sovereignty  to  his  kinsman  the  King  of 
Prussia,  came  with  his  wife  to  live  in  England.  At  their 
well-known  place  of  abode  at  Hammersmith,  called  Bran- 
denburgh House,  amusement  constituted  the  sole  business 
of  life.  He  had  a  passionate  fondness  for  horses,  and  a 
secondary  fondness  for  the  drama.  The  Margravine  built 
a  private  theatre,  wrote  plays  and  operas,  and  delighted  in 
all  the  preliminaries  of  stage  exhibition ;  as  well  as  in 
assembling  around  her  multitudes  of  fashionable  people  to 
applaud  her  devices,  and  to  yield  compensatory  homage 
for  her  exclusion  from  the  British  Court. 

In  December,  1805,  the  Margrave  died.  After  this 
event  the  Margravine  left  England,  and  alleviated  her 
grief  by  change  of  scene. 

In  1825,  she  published  her  <  Memoirs/  In  the  society 
of  her  favourite  son,  the  Hon.  Keppel  Craven,  she  spent 
her  last  years  at  Naples  ;  inhabiting  a  villa  which  she  had 
amused  herself  by  building,  and  there  she  drew  her  last 


LITEUARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

breath,  in  the  mouth  of  January,  1828,  at  the  ripe  age  of 
seventy-seven.  The  best  of  her  poems  is  'The  Fairy's 
Answer,'  addressed  to  Mrs.  Greville.  Frances,  daughter 
of  James  Macartney,  Esq.,  married  Fulke  Greville,  Esq., 
of  Wilbury,  Wiltshire,  only  son  of  Algernon,  second  son  of 
Fulke  Greville,  fifth  Baron  Brooke.  Mrs.  Greville  had 
five  sons  and  one  daughter,  Frances- Anne,  who  inherited 
her  mother's  wit,  and  has  won  perpetual  remembrance  as 
"the  beautiful  Mrs.  Crewe."  In  1756,  Mrs.  Greville  pub- 
lished a  book  called  '  Maxims  a.nd  Characters.'  The  only 
known  survivor  of  her  mental  productions  is : — 

A  PRAYER  FOR  INDIFFERENCE. 

"  Oft  I've  implored  the  gods  in  vain, 
And  pray'd  till  I've  been  weary, 
For  once  I'll  try  my  wish  to  gain 
Of  Oberon  the  fairy. 

Sweet  airy  being,  wanton  sprite, 

That  lurk'st  in  woods  unseen, 
And  oft  by  Cynthia's  silver  light 

Trip'st  gaily  o'er  the  green  ; 

If  e'er  thy  pitying  heart  was  mov'd, 

As  ancient  stories  tell, 
And  for  th'  Athenian  maid  who  lov'd, 

Thou  sought'st  a  wondrous  spell ; 

Oh !  deign  once  more  t'  exert  thy  power  ; 

Haply  some  herb  or  tree, 
Sov'reign  as  juice  of  western  flower, 

Conceals  a  balm  for  me. 

I  ask  no  kind  return  of  love, 

No  Tempting  charm  to  please  : 
Far  from  the  heart  those  gifts  remove, 

That  sighs  for  peace  and  ease. 

Nor  peace  nor  ease  the  heart  can  know, 

Which,  like  the  needle  true, 
Turns  at  the  touch  of  joy  or  woe, 

But,  turning,  trembles  too. 

Far  as  distress  the  soul  can  wound, 

'T  is  pain  in  each  degree  : 
'T  is  bliss  but  ton  certain  bound  ; 

Beyond  is  agony. 


310  LITERACY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Take  then  this  treacherous  sense  of  mine, 

Which  dooms  me  still  to  smart : 
Which  pleasure  can  to  pain  refine  : 
To  pains  new  pangs  impart. 

Oh,  haste  to  shed  the  sacred  balm  ! 

My  shatter'd  nerves  new  string  ; 
And  for  my  guest,  serenely  calm, 

The  nymph  Indifference  bring. 

At  her  approach,  see  Hope,  see  Fear, 

See  Expectation  fly ; 
And  Disappointment  in  the  rear, 

That  blasts  the  promis'd  joy. 

The  tear  which  Pity  taught  to  flow, 
The  eye  shall  then  disown  ; 

The  heart  that  melts  for  others'  woe 
Shall  then  scarce  feel  its  own. 

The  wounds  which  now  each  moment  bleed, 
Each  moment  then  shall  close, 

And  tranquil  days  shall  still  succeed 
To  nights  of  calm  repose. 

Oh  fairy  elf!  but  grant  me  this, 
This  one  kind  comfort  send  ; 

And  so  may  never-fading  bliss 
Thy  flow'ry  paths  attend. 

So  may  the  glow-worm's  glimmering  light 

Thy  tiny  footsteps  lead 
To  some  new  region  of  delight, 

Unknown  to  mortal  tread. 

And  be  thy  acorn  goblet  fill'd 
With  heaven's  ambrosial  dew  ; 

From  sweetest,  freshest  flow'rs  distill'd, 
That  shed  fresh  sweets  for  you. 

And  what  of  life  remains  for  me 

I'll  pass  in  sober  ease  ; 
Half  pleas'd,  contented  will  I  be, 

Content  but  half  to  please." 


THE  FAIRY'S  ANSWER. 

1  Without  preamble,  to  my  friend 
These  hasty  lines  I'm  bid  to  send, 

Or  give,  if  I  am  able ; 
I  dare  not  hesitate  to  say — 
Though  I  have  trembled  all  the  day, 

It  looks  so  like  a  fable — 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  311 

Last  ni-lii'-  adveiiture  is  my  theme  ; 
And  should  it  strike  you  as  a  dream, 

Yet  soon  its  high  import 
Must  make  you  own  the  matter  such, 
So  delicate,  it  were  too  much 

To  be  compos'd  in  sport. 
Fair  Luna  shone  serenely  bright, 
And  every  star  bedeck'd  the  night, 

While  Zephyr  fanned  the  trees  : 
No  sound  assail'd  my  mind's  repose, 
Save  that  yon  stream,  which  murmuring  flows, 

Still  echo'd  to  the  breeze. 
Enwrapt  in  solemn  thoughts  I  sate, 
Revolving  o'er  the  turns  of  fate, 

Yet  void  of  hope  or  fedr  ; 
When  lo  !  behold  an  airy  throng, 
With  lightest  steps,  and  jocund  song, 

Surpris'd  my  eye  and  ear. 
A  form  superior  to  the  rest 
His  little  voice  to  me  addrest, 

And  gently  thus  began : 
'  I've  heard  strange  things  from  one  of  you, 
Pray  tell  me  if  you  think  't  is  true  ; 

Explain  it  if  you  can. 
Such  incense  has  perfumed  my  throne, 
Such  eloquence  my  heart  has  won, 

I  think  I  guess  the  hand : 
I  know  her  wit  and  beauty  too, 
But  why  she  sends  a  prayer  so  new 

I  cannot  understand. 
To  light  some  flames,  and  some  revive, 
To  keep  some  others  just  alive, 

Full  oft  I  am  implor'd  : 
But,  with  peculiar  power  to  please, 
To  supplicate  for  nought  but  ease, — 

'T  is  odd  upon  my  word ! 
Tell  her,  with  fruitless  care  I've  sought, 
And  though  my  realms,  with  wonders  fraught, 

In  remedies  abound, 
No  grain  of  cold  Indifference 
Was  ever  yet  allied  to  Sense, 

In  all  my  Fairy  round. 
The  regions  of  the  sky  I'd  trace, 
I'd  ransack  every  earthly  place, 

Each  leaf,  each  herb,  each  flower, 
To  mitigate  the  pangs  of  Fear, 
Dispel  the  clouds  of  black  Despair, 

Or  lull  the  restless  hour. 


312  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

I  would  be  generous  as  I'm  just, 
But  I  obey,  as  others  must, 

Those  laws  which  Fate  has  made  ; 
My  tiny  kingdom  how  defend, 
And  what  might  be  the  horrid  end, 

Should  man  my  state  invade. 

'T  would  put  your  mind  into  a  rage, 
And  such  unequal  war  to  wage 

Suits  not  my  regal  duty ! 
I  dare  not  change  a  first  decree, 
She's  dooni'd  to  please,  nor  can  be  free — 

Such  is  the  lot  ol  beauty  ! ' 

This  said,  he  darted  o'er  the  plain, 
And  after  follow'd  all  his  train  ; 

No  glimpse  of  him  I  find  ; 
But  sure  I  am,  the  little  sprite 
These  words,  before  he  took  his  flight, 

Imprinted  on  my  mind." 


LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  313 


CHAPTEK   XV. 

THE  POETESSES. 

A.D.  1833— SEPTEMBER. 

Hannah  Jklore. 


"  Our  province  is  virtue  and  religion,  life  and  manners  ;  the  science  of 
improving  the  temper  and  making  the  heart  better.  This  is  the  field 
assigned  us  to  cultivate." — Bishop  Butler's  Sermon  '  Upon  the  Ignorance 
of  Man.' 


HANNAH  MORE. 

GRANGER,  in  his  '  Biographical  History  of  England'  (vol.  i. 
p.  288),  quoting  from  Holland's  *  Heroologia,'  mentions  that 
"  the  Rev.  Mr.  John  More  of  Norwich,  one  of  the  worthiest 
clergymen  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  gave  the  best  reason 
that  could  be  given  for  wearing  the  longest  and  largest 
beard  of  any  Englishman  of  his  time,  namely,  that  no  act 
of  his  life  might  be  unworthy  of  the  gravity  of  his  appear- 
ance." Whether  Jacob  More  could  claim  kindred  with 
this  sage  of  venerable  aspect  does  not  appear,  but  he  also 
was  a  Norfolk  man,  a  descendant  of  the  Presbyterian 
family  of  the  Mores  of  Harleston.  He  received  the 
education  of  a  scholar,  and  his  prospects  in  life  being 
marred  by  the  adverse  decision  of  a  lawsuit  he  left  his 
native  county,  and,  after  having  acted  for  some  time  in 
the  capacity  of  a  supervisor  of  excise  at  Bristol,  obtained 
the  mastership  of  the  Free  School  at  Fishponds,  a  hamlet 


314  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

of  the  parish  of  Stapleton,  in  the  county  of  Gloucester, 
and  soon  afterwards  espoused  Mary  Grace,  the  daughter  of 
a  respectable  farmer  in  that  vicinity,  who  was,  like  himself, 
remarkable  for  religious  principles,  sound  sense,  prudent 
management,  and  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England. 
Five  daughters  were  the  issue  of  this  marriage — Mary, 
born  in  1738 ;  Elizabeth,  born  in  1740 ;  Sarah,  born  in 
1743 ;  HANNAH,  born  on  the  2nd  of  February,  1745 ;  and 
Martha,  born  in  1749  :  the  hamlet  of  Fishponds  being  the 
native  place  of  the  sisterhood.  The  father  educated  all 
his  daughters  with  a  view  to  their  future  occupation  as 
schoolmistresses.  They  all  had  strong  minds,  sagacious 
intellects,  and  superior  capacities  for  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  Mary  was  distinguished  for  a  rigid  adherence 
to  the  dictates  of  right  reason,  and  for  indomitable  strength 
of  will :  Elizabeth  was  of  a  more  compliant  nature,  prudent, 
reserved,  and  possessing  a  peculiar  faculty  for  orderly  and 
methodical  domestic  management :  Sarah  was  full  of  en- 
terprise and  of  vivacious  and  joyous  spirits,  evincing  also 
considerable  talents  for  literature:  Martha  had  the  best 
abilities  of  the  four  sisters,  and  combined  in  herself  the 
chief  excellencies  of  their  several  characters  ;  indefatigable 
and  cheerful  activity  was  her  distinctive  attribute. 

Hannah  More's  precocity  of  mind  was  extraordinary : 
listening  to  the  lessons  which  were  taught  to  her  elder 
sisters,  she  learned  them  for  herself  without  apparent 
effort,  and  made  rhymes  at  four  years  old.  Her  nurse 
had  formerly  lived  in  the  family  of  Dryden  the  poet,  and 
Hannah  took  great  delight  in  hearing  stories  related  of  his 
sayings  and  doings.  From  her  father's  recital  she  learned, 
instead  of  fairy  tales,  the  most  striking  incidents  of  Grecian 
and  Eoman  history,  anecdotes  from  '  Plutarch's  Lives/ 
and  many  of  that  philosopher's  wise  axioms. 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  315 

The  advantage  of  being  a  younger  child  enabled  her  to 
imbibe  with  facility  all  the  atoms  of  information  floating 
in  the  healthy,  moral  atmosphere  of  her  home.  Literary 
ambition  manifested  itself  with  the  earliest  exercise  of 
reason,  and  prevailed  even  in  her  sports ;  her  favourite 
amusement  being  to  make  fictitious  journeys  to  London 
upon  a  chair,  in  order  to  converse  with  bishops  and  book- 
sellers, the  earliest  idols  of  her  imagination.  Her  father 
instructed  her  in  the  Latin  language,  and  in  the  elements 
of  mathematics,  until  alarmed  at  her  progress,  lest  she 
should  become  that  dreaded  monster  a  learned  woman,  he 
ceased  for  a  while  to  act  as  her  preceptor,  and  could  with 
difficulty  be  persuaded  by  his  less  prejudiced  wife  to  allow 
the  eager  child  to  pursue  her  studious  course.  The  wish 
to  teach  as  well  as  to  learn  was  early  evinced  by  Hannah 
More ;  and  no  sooner  had  she  acquired  the  art  of  pen- 
manship than  she  seized  upon  all  the  scraps  of  paper  that 
fell  in  her  way  and  covered  them  with  moral  essays,  verses, 
and  letters  of  admonition  to  supposititious  culprits. 

Mary  More  was  sent  at  stated  intervals  to  a  French 
school  at  Bristol,  four  miles  off,  where  she  steadily  applied 
herself  to  make  the  best  of  her  advantages,  and  day  by 
day,  or  week  by  week,  carried  home  what  she  learned,  and 
used  the  intermediate  hours  in  imparting  a  knowledge  of 
the  French  language  to  her  sisters.  The  society  of  several 
French  officers,  prisoners  of  war  on  parole,  who  occasionally 
visited  Mr.  More's  dinner-table,  afforded  the  sisters  still 
further  opportunities  of  attaining  fluency  in  French  con- 
versation. 

The  superior  abilities,  religious  principles,  and  excellent 
conduct  of  these  five  sisters  attracted  the  notice  and  secured 
the  esteem  of  the  chief  persons  resident  in  their  neighbour- 
hood, and  it  is  probable  that  pecuniary  assistance  was  prof- 


316  LITERAEY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

fered  and  accepted  to  assist  the  enterprising  girls  in  the 
establishment  of  a  boarding-school.  In  1757,  Mary  More, 
being  then  nineteen  years  of  age,  took  a  house  in  Trinity- 
street,  Bristol,  and,  with  her  sisters  Elizabeth  and  Sarah  as 
coadjutors,  and  Hannah  and  Martha  as  pupils  for  a  time, 
commenced  the  most  successful  career  in  the  records  of 
feminine  school-keeping.  At  this  important  era  of  Hannah 
More's  existence  she  had  attained  the  age  of  twelve  years : 
she  sedulously  availed  herself  of  the  instructions  of  masters 
in  the  Italian  and  Spanish  languages,  and  in  other  accom- 
plishments, and  pursued  with  avidity  every  possible  means 
of  mental  and  moral  self-improvement.  One  of  the  first 
books  which  attracted  her  mind  was  'The  Spectator/ 
that  beacon  of  literary  taste  and  social  directory  of  English- 
women. An  odd  volume  of  Kichardson's  '  Pamela,'  met 
with  by  accident,  is  also  supposed  to  have  excited  her 
early  interest  for  fictitious  narrative. 

A  linendraper  named  Peach,  who  had  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  David  Hume,  during  that  eminent  writer's 
two  years'  residence  in  Bristol,  and  was  subsequently  en- 
trusted with  the  task  of  striking  out  the  Scotticisms  in  the 
first  edition  of  his  history,  became  the  critical  guide  of 
Hannah  More's  English  studies;  and  to  him  she  ever 
acknowledged  herself  to  be  indebted  for  the  inculcation  of 
just  principles  of  composition  and  the  formation  of  a  correct 
literary  style. 

Years  passed  on,  the  school  prospered,  and  Hannah  and 
Martha  More  rose  from  the  pupils'  forms  to  the  place  of 
teachers  and  part-proprietors  of  the  establishment. 

Hannah's  knowledge  of  the  physical  sciences  was  chiefly 
derived  from  James  Ferguson.  He  was  in  the  habit  of 
lecturing  at  Bristol  upon  astronomy  and  mechanics.  The 
Miss  Mores  admired  his  wonderful  abilities,  and  the  energy 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  317 

with  which  he  imparted  the  scientific  truths  wrought  out 
and  acquired  by  his  self-taught  mind.  Hannah  took 
especial  pleasure  in  his  instructive  conversation,  and  he, 
discerning  her  taste  and  acumen,  submitted  all  his  sub- 
sequent writings  to  her  criticism  before  publication. 

In  the  year  1763,  Mr.  Sheridan  delivered  at  Bristol  a 
course  of  lectures  upon  rhetoric :  Hannah  More,  then 
seventeen  years  of  age,  enchanted  with  a  new  opportunity 
of  personal  improvement,  addressed  to  him  a  copy  of 
complimentary  verses.  Acquaintance  ensued,  and  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Sheridan  and  their  highly-gifted  son,  Kichard 
Brinsley,  were  soon  added  permanently  to  the  number  of 
her  friends.  To  the  lessons  in  elocution  then  and  sub- 
sequently received  from  Mr.  Sheridan  it  is  probable  that 
both  Sarah  and  Hannah  More  were  indebted  for  the  re- 
markable elegance  with  which  they  read  aloud.  The 
powers  of  Hannah  in  recitation  were  also  admirable. 

It  was  then  the  custom  in  female  boarding-schools  to 
have  plays  occasionally  represented,  in  which  the  senti- 
ments and  manners  were  frequently  incongruous  with  the 
delicate  proprieties  belonging  to  the  pupils  who  performed 
them.  Like  most  other  clever  women,  Hannah  More  had 
in  early  life  a  strong  predilection  for  dramatic  exhibitions ; 
she  cherished  the  belief  that  the  stage  might  be  made  a 
powerful  instrument  in  effecting  the  moral  improvement 
of  society,  and  the  didactic  spirit  of  her  family  and  occu- 
pation was  strong  within  her.  Obeying  these  impulses 
she  wrote,  in  the  year  1763,  when  only  eighteen  years  of 
age,  *  The  Search  after  Happiness,  a  Pastoral  Drama  for 
Young  Ladies.' 

'The  Search  after  Happiness'  acquired  extensive  circu- 
lation in  manuscript,  and  spread  far  and  wide  the  fame  of 
the  author  and  the  reputation  of  the  school,  which  the 


318  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

sisters  conducted  with  hitherto  unparalleled  discretion  and 
ability.  At  no  other  establishment  could  equal  advantages 
of  religious,  moral,  and  mental  instruction  be  obtained. 
The  influx  of  scholars  proved  too  great  for  the  domicile, 
and  the  sisters  consequently  built  for  themselves  a  larger 
house  on  vacant  ground,  the  first  of  the  locality  now  well 
known  as  Park-street,  Bristol.  There  they  received  sixty 
boarders,  and  might,  if  they  would,  have  had  as  many 
more,  the  school  being  the  most  fashionable  and  prosperous 
in  the  kingdom. 

In  1764,  Sir  James  Stonhouse,  the  eminent  physician, 
took  Holy  Orders,  and,  probably  a  little  before  that  date, 
came  with  his  second  wife  and  family  to  reside  at  Bristol, 
in  the  same  street  with  the  Miss  Mores.  Appreciating 
their  worth  and  talents,  he  introduced  them  at  his  house 
to  the  best  society  of  the  city  and  neighbourhood,  among 
whom  their  good  looks,  agreeable  manners,  lively  conver- 
sation, and  total  freedom  from  every  sort  and  degree  of 
artifice  and  affectation,  made  them  general  favourites. 
Sir  James  especially  delighted  in  fostering  the  genius  of 
Hannah ;  he  directed  her  theological  studies,  and  remained 
through  life  her  almost  paternal  friend. 

In  1765,  occupying  herself  with  the  study  of  Italian 
literature,  and  making  poetical  translations  for  the  im- 
provement of  her  style,  she  enlarged  and  worked  up 
Metastasio's  opera  of  '  Attilio  Eegolo '  into  an  English 
tragedy,  to  which  she  gave  the  title  of  '  The  Inflexible 
Captive.'  This  alone  of  all  her  mere  literary  exercises, 
she  deemed  worthy  of  preservation.  Several  short  pieces 
from  other  Italian  poets,  and  from  Spanish  writers,  were 
saved  from  oblivion  by  the  friends  of  her  youth,  and  evince 
a  masterly  facility. 

All    the    sisters    excelled    in    colloquial    French,    and 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  319 

S.i  rah,  as  well  as  Hannah,  spoke  the  Italian  and  Spanish 
languages  fluently. 

The  candour  with  which  the  other  four  sisters  admitted, 
asserted,  and  gloried  in  the  superiority  of  Hannah,  the 
subservience  in  which  they  held  their  own  pretensions  to 
notice,  and  the  consistent  self-denial  with  which  they  set 
themselves  as  foils  to  show  off  on  all  occasions  her  tran- 
scendent brilliancy,  prove  at  once  the  soundness  of  their 
understandings,  the  nobleness  of  their  hearts,  and  the 
strength  of  their  family  affection.  She  was  the  centre  of 
their  worldly  hopes  and  fears,  their  first  earthly  object  in 
life.  Martha  was  pre-eminent  in  this  devotion  to  Hannah, 
and  Hannah  repaid  them  all  with  cordial  love,  bore  all 
her  honours  meekly,  and  led  and  joined  her  sisters  in 
every  benevolent  act  for  which  circumstances  gave  the 
opportunity.  Gratitude  to  their  parents  was  evinced  by 
relieving  them  from  labour,  setting  them  free  from  care, 
and  placing  them  in  a  comfortable  house  at  Stony  Hill, 
with  two  maid-servants  to  wait  upon  them,  where  the 
dutiful  daughters  could  witness  and  enjoy  the  reflection 
of  the  happiness  they  bestowed. 

The  fatiguing  monotony  of  their  arduous  employment 
was  broken  by  spending  the  vacations  at  the  houses  of 
various  friends.  Hannah  and  her  devoted  "  Patty  "  were 
frequently  the  guests  of  some  pupils  who  made  their 
home  at  Belmont,  the  seat  of  Edward  Turner,  Esq.,  and 
there  Hannah's  taste  for  landscape-gardening  was  elicited, 
alterations  were  made  at  her  suggestion,  and  memorials 
erected,  which,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century,  still  testify  of 
her.  A  scene  in  those  grounds,  and  a  legend  connected 
with  it,  afforded  the  materials  for  her  poem,  called  '  The 
Bleeding  Rock.'  Mr.  Turner  of  Belmont,  a  man  of  large 
fortune,  and  of  an  intellectual  and  honourable  character, 


320  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

though  of  a  gloomy  and  capricious  temper,  was  not  insen- 
sible to  the  extraordinary  attractions,  moral,  mental,  and 
personal,  of  the  gay  and  gentle  Hannah  More.  In  the 
year  1767,  when  she  numbered  twenty-two,  and  he  forty- 
two  years,  he  made  her  an  offer  of  marriage.  Tempted, 
perhaps,  by  the  desire  of  independence  and  social  position, 
or  mistaking  gratitude  for  love,  she  accepted  it,  resigned 
her  partnership  in  the  school,  and  laid  up  a  large  supply 
of  expensive  house-linen,  clothes,  and  other  appertain- 
ments  of  a  country  gentleman's  bride.  Three  times,  in  the 
course  of  the  six  following  years,  the  wedding-day  was 
fixed,  and  as  often  postponed  by  her  affianced  husband. 
He  would  not  give  up  the  engagement,  yet  he  hesitated 
to  fulfil  it.  Thus,  lingering  in  suspense,  Hannah  More's 
health  and  spirits  failed ;  she  saw  that  there  could  be  no 
rational  prospect  of  happiness  with  a  man  who  could  so 
cruelly  trifle  with  her  feelings ;  and  yielding  to  the  remon- 
strances of  her  sisters,  came  at  last  to  a  peremptory  deci- 
sion, and  renounced  the  engagement.  Against  this  Mr. 
Turner  earnestly  protested,  declaring  to  Sir  James  Ston- 
house,  that  he  would  marry  her  without  further  delay,  at 
any  hour,  if  she  would  but  have  him.  Sanctioned  by  the 
opinion  of  Mrs.  Gwatkin,  and  of  all  her  best  friends, 
Hannah  More  firmly  adhered  to  her  resolution,  and  re- 
jected this  proposal.  By  the  interposition  of  Sir  James, 
an  amicable  arrangement  was  at  last  effected,  and  Mr. 
Turner,  at  his  own  instance,  and  after  repeated  and  urgent 
entreaties,  was  allowed  to  settle  upon  her  an  annuity  of 
2007.  a-year ;  having  offered  one  of  triple  the  amount. 
The  agitation  and  distress  caused  by  Mr.  Turner's  conduct 
induced  Hannah  More  to  determine,  with  that  infrangible 
strength  of  will  which  belonged  to  her  mild  yet  noble 
character,  that  she  would  never  again  listen  to  matri- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  321 

monial  proposals.  Her  resolution  was  subsequently  tested 
more  than  once,  and  never  wavered  for  a  moment ;  and 
her  experience  probably  induced  her  sisters  likewise  to 
preserve  their  maiden  liberty. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1773,  Hannah  More,  accom- 
panied by  two  of  her  sisters,  went  to  London  for  the  first 
time.  She  was  then  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  and  pos- 
sessed an  independent  income,  which  released  her  from 
the  onerous  toils  of  a  schoolmistress,  and  sufficed  for  all 
her  requirements ;  she  retained  a  happy  home  with  her 
fondly  attached  family,  possessed  many  valuable  friends, 
and  had  already  won  a  high  reputation  for  learning  and 
for  brilliant  conversational  talents.  She  had  not  there- 
fore to  seek  in  the  metropolis  those  objects  which  com- 
monly attract  the  lowly  born,  increase  of  wealth,  or  eleva- 
tion of  station,  either  for  herself  or  her  kinswomen. 

Her  future  career  began  to  open  more  clearly  before 
her,  and  she  sought  an  opportunity  of  increasing  her  stores 
of  knowledge,  of  becoming  acquainted  with  authors  and 
other  celebrated  persons,  of  seeing  the  world,  and  ascer- 
taining the  part  which  it  behoved  her  to  play  in  it.  In 
fact  she  went  into  the  great  arena  of  life  to  try  her 
strength  among  the  athletae.  She  had  by  her,  and  pro- 
bably with  her,  the  tragedy  of  '  Eegulus '  ready  for  the 
stage  and  the  press ;  and  it  was  a  part  of  her  business  in 
this,  her  first  visit  to  London,  to  see  a  publisher,  and  to 
make  arrangements  with  him  for  the  immediate  publica- 
tion of  her  already  popular  school-play. 

The  author  of  the  present  biographical  notice  possesses 
a  copy  of  *  The  Search  after  Happiness ;  a  Pastoral  Drama ; 
the  ninth  edition,  with  Additions,  1787.'  The  preface 
states  that  "  This  little  poem  was  composed  when  the 
author  was  only  eighteen  years  old,"  that  is  to  say,  in  the 

Y 


322         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

year  1763.  The  dedication,  to  Mrs.  Gwatkin,  acknow- 
ledges the  friendship  with  which  from  Hannah  More's 
childhood  that  lady  had  honoured  her,  and  bears  the  date 
of  the  drama's  publication,  May  10,  1773,  the  year  and 
period  of  Hannah's  first  visit  to  London.  There  is  a  pro- 
logue, and  between  the  concluding  speech  of  the  drama 
and  the  epilogue  there  is  an  Ode  to  Charity,  "  To  be  per- 
formed by  the  characters  of  the  piece."  This  may  pro- 
bably be  reckoned  among  the  '  Additions ; '  the  others 
consist  in  an  'Inscription  in  a  beautiful  Ketreat,  called 
Fairy  Bower ; '  a  '  Prologue  to  Hamlet,  spoken  by  the 
late  Mr.  Powell,  on  his  benefit  night,  at  the  theatre  of 
Jacob's  Well,  near  Bristol;'  besides  another  prologue, 
which,  filling  the  last  leaves  of  the  pamphlet,  has  been 
torn  away  and  partly  lost.  The  last  page  (57)  shows  it 
to  have  been  spoken  on  the  first  appearance  of  a  female 
candidate  for  scenic  favour. 

'  The  Search  after  Happiness '  met  with  immediate  and 
great  success ;  and  she  presented  the  copyright  and  profits 
of  this  her  first  publication,  to  her  beloved  and  devoted 
sister  Patty. 

The  theatre,  with  its  scenic  hero,  formed  a  principal 
object  of  attraction.  Having  seen  Garrick  in  '  Lear,' 
and  written  her  opinion  of  that  wonderful  impersonation  to 
a  mutual  acquaintance,  who  showed  it  to  him,  Garrick 
called  on  her,  at  her  lodgings  in  Henrietta-street,  Covent- 
Garden.  A  lively  conversation  ensued;  he  perceived  at 
once  her  extraordinary  mental  powers,  her  tendency  and 
talent  for  the  drama,  and  he  resolved  to  cultivate  her 
friendship.  The  next  day  she  received  from  Mrs.  Garrick 
an  invitation  to  their  villa  at  Hampton.  Being  introduced 
there  to  Mrs.  Montagu,  and  meeting  soon  afterwards  at 
Mrs.  Montagu's  house,  in  Hill-street,  Mrs.  Boscawen,  and 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  323 

at  Mrs.  Boscawen's  house,  in  Audley-street,  Mrs.  Vesey, 
London  society,  in  all  its  combined  strength  of  intellectual 
and  aristocratic  glory,  burst  forth  at  once  on  her  en- 
raptured vision. 

In  the  biography  of  every  literary  woman  of  this  period, 
the  name  of  Mrs.  Montagu  finds  a  place  ;  not  for  the  sake 
of  her  literary  works,  not  for  the  superior  and  incompar- 
able fineness  of  her  sense,  not  for  her  admirable  accom- 
plishments ;  but  because,  being  a  distinguished  leader  of 
the  fashionable  world,  she  used  her  influence  to  bring  out 
of  the  dimness  of  obscurity  and  the  discouragement  of 
solitary  effort  the  most  gifted  of  her  fellow-countrywomen ; 
to  make  them  agreeably  known  to  each  other,  to  enhance 
their  brilliancy  by  gentle  collision,  to  clear  their  way  to 
success  by  placing  them  in  contact  with  people  of  rank 
and  fortune,  while  leavening  the  dull  and  formal  frivolity 
of  patrician  assemblages  with  refined  and  elevating  ele- 
ments. Oh,  for  another  Mrs.  Montagu,  in  this  the  seventh ' 
lustre  of  the  nineteenth  century!  Authoresses  miss  her 
as  much  as  the  chimney-sweepers  do.  Many  there  are 
among  the  great  who  patronise  and  exhibit  lions  and 
lionesses  in  their  respective  circles ;  but  where  can  now  be 
found  the  drawing-room  of  a  leading  member  of  the  highest 
social  class  in  which  persons  of  genius  habitually  meet  to 
ameliorate  each  others'  minds  and  manners,  and  to  blend 
the  silver  threads  of  their  discourse  with  the  flimsy  tissue 
of  conventional  utterances  ?  There  is  nothing  more  beauti- 
ful or  beneficial  in  that  human  intercourse,  which  is  merely 
mental  and  of  the  earth,  than  the  association  of  persons  of 
elevated  rank  with  those  of  gifted  beings  in  a  lower 
station. 

Hannah  More's  quickness  of  repartee  and  sharpness  of 
intellect,  her  ready  application  of  one  fact  to  illustrate 

Y2 


324  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND, 

or  contradict  another,  her  aptness  of  quotation,  gaiety  of 
heart,  sweetness  of  temper,  and  unaffected  kindliness  and 
sincerity,  soon  won  universal  favour.  Kank,  wealth,  and 
their  accessories,  never  dazzled  her  for  an  instant.  Genius, 
learning,  and  urbanity,  allured  her ;  and  when  they  gave 
not  only  reciprocal  estimation,  but  admiring  homage  to 
her  talents,  she  did  feel  rejoiced  and  elated,  and  occa- 
sionally, perhaps,  she  felt  her  brain  whirl  a  little,  though 
thought  steadied  it  in  a  moment. 

Practical  respect  for  religious  ordinances,  a  serious  assent 
to  the  doctrinal  truths  of  Christianity,  and  the  highest 
moral  rectitude,  had,  from  childhood,  become  inwrought 
parts  of  her  character ;  and  her  ardent  enthusiasm  had 
always  the  counterbalance  of  sober  judgment.  Sunday 
dinner-parties  and  the  opera-house  proved,  from  the  first, 
revolting  to  her  sense  of  right,  and  she  abjured  them 
speedily,  although,  in  those  days  of  lukewarm  religion  and 
lax  morality,  they  were  not  thought  wrong  by  many  of 
the  most  exemplary  persons  in  that  grave  section  of 
fashionable  society  to  which  she  at  once  attached  herself. 
She  never  enjoyed  gregarious  meetings,  and,  like  Mrs. 
Montagu,  she  never  played  at  cards :  conversation  parties, 
whether  they  numbered  half-a-dozen  or  half-a-hundred,  she 
delighted  in. 

Among  the  earliest  and  warmest  of  her  London  friends 
were  Sir  Joshua  Keynolds  and  his  sister,  at  whose  house, 
or  through  whose  interposition,  she  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  Edmund  Burke,  and  Bishop  Percy.  At 
the  request  of  Miss  Eeynolds,  Hannah  More  sat  to  her  for 
a  portrait.  It  represents  her  small  and  slender  figure 
gracefully  attired ;  the  hands  and  arms  delicately  fine ;  the 
eyes  large,  dark,  and  lustrous ;  the  eye-brows  well  marked 
and  softly  arched ;  the  countenance  beaming  with  benevo- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.,  325 

lent  and  intelligent  expression.  The  only  drawback  on  her 
appearance  is  the  peculiar  flatness  of  the  bridge  of  the  nose. 

On  returning  to  Bristol,  Hannah  More  set  herself  assidu- 
ously to  the  study  of  the  Latin  historians,  orators,  and 
poets.  In  1774  *  The  Inflexible  Captive '  (Regulus)  was 
acted  with  much  applause  at  the  Bath  theatre.  The  pro- 
logue was  from  the  pen  of  her  friend  Dr.  Langhorne,  then 
vicar  of  Blagdon;  the  epilogue  from  that  of  David 
Garrick,  who  was  present  at  the  first  representation  of  this 
tragedy.  It  was  subsequently  performed  at  Exeter,  and 
published  in  London  during  Hannah  More's  second  visit- 
In  the  same  year  Mr.  Burke's  election  for  Bristol  was 
warmly  aided  by  the  interest  of  Hannah  More  and  her 
sisters. 

In  1775,  during  her  stay  in  London,  she  published  a 
volume  containing  two  poetical  tales,  <  Sir  Eldred  of  the 
Bower,'  and  *  The  Bleeding  Kock ; '  which  were  received 
with  a  public  outburst  of  eulogy,  led  by  the  voices  of  Mrs. 
Montagu,  Burke,  Garrick,  and  Johnson.  The  latter  is 
alleged  to  have  admired,  revised,  and  slightly  altered  tlio 
manuscript  of  '  Sir  Eldred.'  About  this  time  it  appears 
that  she  first  became  domiciled  with  the  Garricks  for 
many  months  in  the  year,  at  their  house  in  the  Adelphi 
and  their  villa  at  Hampton;  having  a  separate  room  as- 
signed for  the  reception  of  her  private  friends  and  the 
uninterrupted  pursuit  of  her  studies.  In  a  letter  written 
from  London  in  1775,  while  the  first  rich  bloom  still  rested 
on  the  fruits  of  her  fashionable  experience,  Hannah  More 
remarks : — "  The  more  I  see  of  the  *  honoured,  famed,  and 
great/  the  more  I  see  of  the  littleness,  the  uusatisfacto- 
riness  of  all  created  good ;  and  that  no  earthly  pleasure 
can  fill  up  the  wants  of  th6  immortal  principle  within." 
A  perception  of  the  under  current  of  follies,  vices,  and 


326  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

miseries  which  poisoned  the  springs  of  fashionable  society, 
always  tempered  her  enjoyment  of  the  enchanted  cup, 
saddened  her  participation  gradually  more  and  more,  and 
eventually  caused  her  to  turn  away  from  it  in  disgust. 

Nevertheless,  she  zealously  pursued,  under  the  most 
favourable  auspices,  the  ambitious  course  upon  which  she 
had  entered,  flattered  with  the  hope  of  fulfilling  the  expec- 
tations of  her  friends,  and  gladdening  the  hearts  of  her 
family  by  achieving  a  dramatic  conquest.  She  spent  the 
first  six  months  of  the  year  1766  with  the  Garricks,  at 
Hampton  and  in  the  Adelphi ;  working  at  *  Percy/  entering 
much  into  society,  and  witnessing  twenty-seven  of  the 
series  of  performances  in  which  David  Garrick  bade  fare- 
well to  the  stage. 

Her  volume  of  '  Essays  on  Various  Subjects,  principally 
designed  for  Young  Ladies,'  is  not  alluded  to  by  Koberts. 
Thompson  mentions  it  as  "  the  first  of  her  ethical  treatises," 
and  says  that  she  was  engaged  in  writing  it  while  still  occu- 
pied with  *  Percy  ; '  but  he  assigns  no  date  to  its  publication. 
The  dedication  to  Mrs.  Montagu  supplies  this  information, 
bearing  at  its  close  the  words,  "  Bristol,  May  20,  1777." 
This  book  passed  through  four  editions  in  the  course  of  ten 
years ;  and  although  suppressed  by  the  author  in  the  uni- 
form collection  of  her  works,  has  been  reprinted  in  Whit- 
tingham's  Cabinet  Library,  and  probably  in  many  other 
forms  by  various  publishers.  The  matter  which  it  contains 
was  embodied  by  Hannah  More  in  subsequent  works.  The 
introduction  is  timidly  but  ably  written.  The  essays  are 
'On  Dissipation,'  'Conversation,'  'Envy,'  *  The  Danger 
of  Sentimental  or  Eomantic  Connections,'  'True  and 
False  Meekness,'  'The  Cultivation  of  the  Heart  and 
Temper  in  the  Education  of  Daughters,'  '  The  Importance 
of  Religion  to  the  Female  Character,'  and  'Observations 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

on  Genius,  Taste,  Good  Sense,'  &c.  They  evince  the 
same  powers  of  thought,  which,  in  a  more  mature  state, 
wrought  afterwards  so  effectually  and  so  beneficially  upon 
society.  The  style  is  too  antithetical,  and  so  thoroughly 
Johnsonian,  that  several  sentences  plagiarized  word  for 
word  seem  quite  at  home  amidst  congenial  expressions  of 
her  original  opinions. 

In  the  summer  of  the  same  year  (1777),  she  paid  a  visit 
to  some  of  her  father's  wealthy  relations  in  Norfolk,  and 
retraced  with  filial  satisfaction  the  scenes  of  his  childhood 
and  youth  ;  and  she  also  spent  a  few  tranquil  and  pleasant 
days  at  Palgrave  with  Mrs.  Barbauld,  passing  and  repassing 
through  London ;  and  going  from  thence,  on  her  return,  to 
Hampton  for  a  time,  before  she  went  home  to  Bristol 
hi  August.  In  the  November  of  the  same  year  she  was 
again  a  sojourner  in  the  metropolis  ;  her  tragedy  of  *  Percy ' 
having  been  accepted,  through  the  intervention  of  Mr. 
Garrick,  by  Mr.  Harris,  the  manager  of  Covent  Garden 
Theatre,  where  it  was  brought  out  in  that  month.  It  had 
been  composed  under  the  immediate  supervision  of  Garrick ; 
he  wrote  the  prologue  and  epilogue  with  his  usual  point 
and  sprightliness ;  he  performed  the  principal  character  on 
the  first  representation;  and  Mrs.  Garrick  accompanied 
Hannah  More  to  the  theatre  to  witness  the  most  acclaiming 
triumph  a  modern  author  can  experience.  The  success 
of  the  tragedy  was  complete;  it  had  a  run  of  twenty- 
one  nights,  was  frequently  re-produced  as  an  established 
favourite,  and  went  the  whole  round  of  the  provincial 
theatres.  It  was  printed  with  a  dedication  to  Earl  Percy ; 
the  first  edition,  comprising  four  thousand  copies,  was  sold 
in  a  fortnight,  and  she  received  the  congratulations  and 
rapturous  eulogies  of  those  "  whose  praise  is  fame."  The 
sum  of  600?.,  gained  by  this  successful  drama,  was  invested 


328  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

for  her  at  5  per  cent,  interest,  upon  good  security,  by  the 
warm-hearted  friend  whose  zealous  exertions  had  cleared 
her  way  to  general  celebrity. 

Going  home  to  her  sisters,  in  April,  1778,  with  a  heart 
overflowing  with  joyous  gratitude,  she  wrote  her  'Ode 
from  H.  M.  at  Bristol,  to  Dragon,  Mr.  Garrick's  house-dog, 
at  Hampton ; '  one  of  the  most  cordial  and  elegant  tributes 
ever  rendered  by  a  poetess  to  her  friends ;  nor  does  it  lack 
a  moral : — 

"  How  wise  a  short  retreat  to  steal 
The  vanity  of  life  to  feel, 

And  from  its  cares  to  fly  ; 
To  act  one  calm  domestic  scene, 
Earth's  bustle  and  the  grave  between, 

Retire  and  learn  to  die  !  " 

This  little  poem,  together  with  an  '  Heroic  Epistle  to  Miss 
Sally  Home,'  full  of  liveliness,  learning,  and  ingenuity, 
and  playfully  inculcating  many  valuable  truths,  and  a  tale 
called  '  The  Puppet  Show,'  were  published  in  1778. 

Garrick's  death  occurred  January  the  20th,  1779,  and 
Hannah  More,  instantly  obeying  the  summons  of  his  widow, 
went  to  soothe  the  first  anguish  of  bereavement,  and  re- 
mained with  her  at  Hampton,  in  deep  seclusion,  for  many 
months.  In  the  same  year  her  tragedy  called  '  The  Fatal 
Falsehood,'  which  had  been  read,  revised,  and  approved  by 
Garrick,  was  successfully  performed  at  Covent  Garden 
Theatre.  The  epilogue  was  written  by  Kichard  Brinsley 
Sheridan  ;  the  prologue,  written  by  herself,  contains  some 
touches  of  her  didactic  pen : 

"  Self-conquest  is  the  lesson  books  should  preach, 
Self-conquest  is  the  theme  the  stage  should  teach. 
Vouchsafe  to  learn  this  obvious  duty  here, 
The  verse  though  feeble,  yet  the  moral's  clear  ; 
Oh,  mark  to-night  the  unexampled  woes, 
Which  from  unbounded  self-indulgence  flows." 

The  false  syntax  of  the  two  last  lines  is  obvious ;  how  it 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  329 

escaped  her  own  perception  and  correction  is  a  marvel. 
She  could  not  be  persuaded  by  her  friends  to  attend  the 
first,  or  any  subsequent  representation  of  this  tragedy, 
which  met  with  decided  success  both  in  London  and  the 
provinces.  She  dedicated  it  when  published  to  the  Countess 
Bathurst ;  who,  with  the  Earl,  was  among  the  most  zealous 
and  constant  of  her  aristocratic  friends ;  and  many  a  happy 
evening  she  had  quietly  passed  by  their  fireside  at  Apsley 
House.  '  The  Fatal  Falsehood/  although  much  admired 
on  the  stage  and  in  print,  never  attained  to  the  high  degree 
of  popularity  won  by  *  Percy/  It  was  attacked  in  the  '  St. 
James's  Chronicle '  by  Mrs.  Cowley,  who  accused  Hannah 
More  of  having  plagiarized  it  from  her  *  Albina.'  Hannah 
More  wrote  a  temperate  reply,  denying  her  knowledge  of 
the  very  existence  of  such  a  tragedy  as  '  Albina ; '  and 
although  her  indignation  was  aroused  at  the  charge,  and 
like  her  own  Emmelina,  she  felt  ready  to 

"  Grow  proud, 

As  gentle  spirits  still  are  apt  to  do 
When  cruel  slight  or  killing  scorn  assails  them," 

she  took  an  early  opportunity  of  conferring  a  kindness 
secretly  upon  the  person  who  had  tried  to  injure  her. 
There  certainly  exists  a  degree  of  likeness  between  '  The 
Fatal  Falsehood '  and  *  Albina,'  which  must  be  admitted 
as  an  excuse  for  the  attack,  although  it  cannot  wholly 
justify  it,  nor  in  any  degree  exempt  its  style  and  temper 
from  blame. 

In  June,  1779,  Hannah  More  returned  to  Bristol. 
Kevisiting  Mrs.  Garrick  at  a  later  period  of  the  same  year, 
she  passed  the  winter  of  1779-80,  in  comparative  retirement 
at  Hampton ;  and  in  the  spring,  removing  to  the  Adelphi 
for  a  few  weeks,  they  emerged  once  more  into  the  occa- 
sional sunshine  of  a  more  social  way  of  life.  Hannah  More 


330  LITEEARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

made  some  stay  at  Oxford,  with  the  Kennicotts,  in -the 
summer,  on  her  road  back  to  Bristol ;  and  came  again  to 
Mrs.  Garrick  for  the  winter  of  1780-81.  In  1781,  at  the 
request  of  Bishop  Lowth,  she  published  the  *  Keflections  of 
King  Hezekiah  in  his  sickness ' — a  versified  paraphrase  of 
Isaiah  xxxviii.  In  the  summer  of  the  same  year,  Mrs. 
Garrick  accompanied  her  to  Bristol,  and  spent  a  month 
with  the  unanimous  and  lively  sisterhood,  enjoying  also 
the  occasional  society  of  their  venerable  and  cheerful 
parents.  In  that  year  Hannah  More  wrote  her  'Tale 
of  Woe/  a  record  of  facts  concerning  a  German  lunatic 
named  Louisa,  who  had  been  found  under  a  haystack 
near  Bristol.  Kesorting  in  December  to  her  accustomed 
winter  quarters,  Hannah  More  prepared  to  make  good 
literary  use  of  the  tranquil  seclusion  in  which  she  and 
her  friend  generally  passed  the  cold  weather. 

Early  in  the  year  1782,  Hannah  More  published  her 
'Sacred  Dramas/  and  in  the  same  volume  'Sensibility, 
an  epistle  to  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Boscawen.'  They  were  re- 
ceived with  acclamation  by  the  arbiters  of  public  taste,  and 
sold  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  Leaving  Mrs.  Garrick 
in  June,  Hannah  More  repaired  to  Oxford,  where  she  took 
up  her  abode  for  some  little  time  with  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Kenni- 
cott.  Dr.  Johnson,  being  at  that  time  on  a  visit  to  the 
University,  accompanied  her  as  a  guide,  to  point  out  the 
most  interesting  objects  in  Pembroke  College,  where  he 
had  once  been  a  student.  From  Oxford  she  proceeded 
home  to  Bristol,  and  from  thence  returned  to  Mrs.  Garrick 
in  December.  In  a  letter  dated  "  Hampton,  January  9, 
1783,"  written  by  Hannah  More  to  her  sister  Martha,  in 
reply  to  one  which  had  announced  their  father's  death, 
Hannah  says  :  "  I  am  very  thankful  that  he  was  spared  to 
us  so  long,  that  he  was  removed  when  life  began  to  be  a 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  331 

burden  to  himself,  that  he  did  not  survive  his  faculties,  that 
he  was  not  confined  to  the  miseries  of  a  sick-bed ;  but 
above  all,  that  his  life  was  so  exemplary,  and  his  death  so 
easy."  Their  mother  survived  her  bereavement  for  some 
time.  The  date  of  her  decease  is  not  given  in  either  of  the 
biographies. 

In  the  succeeding  spring  Hannah  More  migrated  with 
Mrs.  Garrick  from  Hampton  to  the  Adelphi.  One  of  her 
letters,  written  in  that  year,  mentions  her  having  long 
since  withdrawn  from  attendance  at  theatres,  and  refusing 
to  be  present  even  to  witness  Mrs.  Siddons's  personation 
of  Elwina.  Dividing  her  time,  as  usual,  between  her 
sisters  and  Mrs.  Garrick,  with  intervening  visits  to  other 
friends,  she  entered  upon  the  year  1784 ;  when,  after 
leaving  London,  she  visited  Mrs.  Walsingham  at  Thames 
Ditton,  made  a  tour  in  Kent,  sojourned  at  Teston,  Hunton, 
Sandleford,  Oxford,  and  Mongewell,  and  took  Mrs.  Kenni- 
cott  home  with  her  to  Bristol.  In  the  course  of  this  year 
she  wrote  '  The  Bas  Bleu,  or  Conversation,  a  poem.'  It  was 
also  in  1784,  that  she  saved  Anne  Yearsley  and  her  family 
from  starvation,  taught  her  to  read  and  write  correctly, 
commenced  in  her  service  a  correspondence,  of  which  her 
personal  share  amounted  ultimately  to  more  than  a  thou- 
sand pages,  and  raised  for  the  same  ungrateful  and  vicious 
milkwoman  a  subscription  which  finally  endowed  her  with 
nearly  500?. 

Passing  through  her  periodical  migrations,  Hannah 
More,  being  at  Bristol  in  the  summer  of  1785,  applied 
herself  diligently  to  the  execution  of  a  plan,  on  which  after 
mature  reflection  she  had  fully  determined.  She  purchased 
a  piece  of  ground  in  the  parish  of  Wrington,  in  Somerset- 
shire, situated  about  ten  miles  from  the  city  of  Bristol ; 
and  about  two  from  the  local  village,  which  was  only 


332  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

remarkable  as  the  birthplace  of  Locke,  for  its  dull  obscu- 
rity, and  for  the  beauty  of  the  surrounding  scenery.  On 
the  ground  thus  acquired  she  built  a  cottage,  which  was 
called  after  its  site,  Cowslip  Green.  This  she  took  pos- 
session of  as  her  future  habitation,  intending  to  spend  the 
principal  part  of  her  time  in  retired  meditation;  and 
henceforth  to  free  herself  from  the  entanglements  of  general 
society,  and  from  the  beguiling  temptations  incident  to  a 
sanguine  temperament  in  the  sunshine  and  applause  of 
royal  and  aristocratic  favour.  She  enjoyed  rural  scenery, 
and  more  especially  the  cheerful  aspects  of  nature,  and 
doubtless  foresaw  that  a  quiet  rural  retreat  must  add  to 
the  comfort  of  her  sisters  in  their  vacation  times. 

Garrick  first  mentioned  Hannah  More  at  Buckingham 
Palace,  to  King  George  the  Third ;  and  subsequently  she 
often  received  messages  from  his  Majesty,  from  the  Queen, 
and  other  members  of  the  Eoyal  Family,  indicating  their 
approval  and  admiration  of  her  works.  Her  *  Bas  Bleu,  or 
Conversation,'  having  acquired  celebrity  in  manuscript,  an 
intimation  was  made  to  her,  probably  through  her  friend 
Mr.  Smelt,  of  the  King's  wish  to  possess  a  copy.  She 
accordingly  prepared  one  in  her  own  neat  and  clear  auto- 
graph. In  the  advertisement  prefixed  to  this  poem  in  the 
collected  edition  of  her  works,  Hannah  More,  referring  to 
the  assemblies  at  Mrs.  Vesey's,  Mrs.  Montagu's,  and  a  few 
other  houses  in  London,  mentions  "  the  many  pleasant  and 
instructive  hours  she  had  the  honour  to  pass  in  this  com- 
pany, in  which  learning  was  as  little  disfigured  by  pedantry, 
good  taste  as  little  tinctured  by  affectation,  and  general 
conversation  as  little  disgraced  by  calumny,  levity,  and 
the  other  censurable  errors  with  which  it  is  too  commonly 
tainted,  as  has  perhaps  been  known  in  any  society." 

'Florio'  seems  to  have  been  written  in  or  about  the 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  333 

year  1785,  and  circulated  extensively  in  manuscript  pre- 
vious to  its  publication,  which  of  course  took  place  shortly 
after  the  date  of  the  prefixed  dedication  to  her  friend,  the 
Hon.  Horace  Walpole,  January  27,  1786.  The  '  Bas 
Bleu '  occupied  the  latter  part  of  the  same  volume ;  which 
was  received  by  the  world,  as  her  plays  and  all  her  pre- 
ceding poems  had  been,  with  a  welcome  as  enthusiastic  as 
if  England  had  been  one  vast  drawing-room,  and  she  the 
petted  heiress,  secure  of  social  applause  for  all  her  sayings 
and  doings. 

The  early  part  of  the  year  1787,  she  passed  as  usual  at 
Hampton  and  in  London  with  Mrs.  Garrick,  making  short 
visits  to  other  friends  ;  and  at  the  earnest  entreaty  of  Mrs. 
Boscawen,  Hannah  More  sat  at  this  period  to  Opie  for  a 
portrait,  of  which  Horace  Walpole  obtained  a  duplicate 
copy.  Instead  of  remaining  at  Bristol  during  the  latter 
months  of  this  year,  she  proceeded  with  her  sister  Patty  to 
Cowslip  Green,  where  Mary,  Elizabeth,  and  Sarah  More 
also  took  up  their  occasional  abode.  Her  disposition  being 
eager  and  earnest,  her  occupation,  whatever  it  might  be, 
wholly  absorbed  her  attention  ;  and  she  often  complained 
that  her  garden  diverted  her  thoughts  from  heaven  as 
entirely  as  London  society  used  to  do.  In  that  little 
demesne  she  had  an  opportunity  of  elucidating  her  own 
axiom,  that  "  There  is  a  truth  in  taste  almost  as  demon- 
strable as  any  mathematical  proposition." 

Sometimes  it  happens  that  success  in  life,  bringing  with 
it  the  pang  of  disappointed  expectation,  and  the  conviction 
that  the  very  fulfilment  of  our  wishes  leaves  the  heart's 
yearning  unsatisfied,  prompts  new  and  higher  strivings 
after  imperishable  spiritual  blessings.  Then  the  soul 
awakens  to  the  true  purpose  of  earthly  existence, — the 
heavenly  ambition  to  subserve  and  to  fulfil  the  will  of  God, 


334         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

and  to  be  and  to  do  whatsoever  He  has  placed  us  in  this 
world  of  His  for  the  especial  purpose  of  being  and  doing  ; 
and  the  desire  of  living  to  Him  predominates  over  or 
supersedes  all  former  objects  of  interest.  Thus  it  proved 
with  Hannah  More.  She  had  now  seen  the  world,  and 
the  world  had  smiled  upon  her ;  not  fitfully  and  caprici- 
ously, as  too  often  is  its  wont,  but  uninterruptedly  and 
constantly  for  many  years.  Her  desires  for  ease,  wealth, 
influence,  superiority,  society,  approbation,  and  knowledge, 
had  been  gratified. 

Many  of  the  best  homes  in  England  solicited  her 
participation  in  their  luxurious  and  leisurely  enjoy- 
ments. Her  competence  was  growing  into  opulence, 
from  the  immense  sale  of  her  publications.  Her  influ- 
ence— mental,  moral,  and  religious — reached  from  the 
palace  of  the  sovereign,  through  all  intervening  grada- 
tions, to  the  hut  of  the  Mendip  miner.  Her  superiority  to 
all  the  other  eminent  women  of  her  time,  in  the  compass 
of  attainments,  the  versatility  of  talent,  and  the  energetic 
exercise  of  power  in  mental  purpose  and  fulfilment,  was 
acknowledged,  tacitly  or  openly,  by  a  Montagu,  a  Carter,  a 
Chapone,  and  a  Barbauld.  The  congenial  society  in  which 
she  delighted,  delighted  also  in  her.  The  approbation  of 
a  Lowth  and  a  Porteus,  of  a  Barrington  and  a  Home, 
cheered  and  encouraged  her  pursuit  of  "  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely  and  of  good  report;"  while  it  might  almost 
literally  be  affirmed  that  everybody  spoke  well  of  her. 
She  had  won  the  esteem  of  the  worthiest,  the  admiration 
of  the  ablest,  the  affection  of  the  most  amiable,  the  ap- 
plause of  the  most  exalted,  and  the  gratitude  of  the  most 
afflicted  of  the  world's  votaries.  She  had  won  knowledge 
too,  various  and  valuable  in  its  height,  and  depth,  and 
breadth,  in  its  extent  and  its  minuteness.  The  desire  for 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  335 

action  continually  incited  her  to  laborious  undertakings. 
The  desire  for  moral  and  spiritual  improvement  pervaded 
more  and  more  the  hallowed  temple  of  her  heart,  and 
struggled  to  burst  forth  and  shine  with  still  increasing 
brightness  for  the  benefit  of  her  fellow-creatures,  and  the 
glory  of  God.  She  had  won  every  worldly  prize  for  which 
she  had  striven.  She  had  proved  that  even  in  success 
there  is  "vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit."  The  purpose 
was  fulfilled  for  which  she  had  entered  upon  the  great 
arena  of  London  life.  She  had -ascertained  her  powers  of 
usefulness,  and  the  time  had  now  arrived  for  their  entire 
consecration.  She  had  sought  from  childhood  "  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  His  righteousness,"  and  now  she  resolved 
fully  and  firmly  to  sacrifice  every  other  pursuit  that  could 
by  possibility  interfere  with  the  supremacy  of  that  Divine 
object.  Whether  it  were  to  rescue  the  insane  from  house- 
less exposure,  to  raise  the  abject  to  competence,  to  win 
back  to  safety  the  inveigled  school-girl,  to  deliver  the  half- 
penitent  harlot  from  the  depths  of  degradation ;  in  short, 
to  administer  aid  or  consolation  in  any  department  of 
charity's  wide  range  of  office,  Hannah  More  was  ever  alert, 
assiduous,  and  persevering.  Her  pen,  her  purse,  her  influ- 
ence, were  ever  at  the  service  of  the  necessitous. 

Entering  warmly  into  the  benevolent  plans  of  her  inti- 
mate friend,  Mr.  Wilberforce,  and  anxious  to  become,  in 
some  measure,  his  coadjutor  in  the  great  work  of  Negro 
Emancipation,  she  published,  in  1788,  her  poem  entitled 
*  The  Black  Slave  Trade/  which  became  very  popular.  In 
the  same  year  appeared  anonymously  her  *  Thoughts  on 
the  Importance  of  the  Manners  of  the  Great  to  General 
Society.'  The  author  was  speedily  recognised,  the  book 
obtained  an  enormous  sale,  and  soon  evinced  its  power  by 
effecting  the  alteration  of  prevailing  customs,  introducing 


336  LITEKARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND. 

a  stricter  code  of  right  and  wrong  in  things  formerly 
deemed  allowable  or  inconsiderately  practised,  and  winning 
over  many  persons  of  influence  to  the  open  advocacy  of 
religious  principles. 

Illness  interrupted  the  series  of  her  annual  visits  to 
Mrs.  Garrick,  but  in  the  spring  of  1789  she  sojourned  for  a 
little  while  at  Hampton,  and  also  at  Fulham  Palace,  where 
a  new  walk,  cut  through  a  shrubbery  by  Bishop  Porteus, 
gave  rise  to  that  lively  and  ingenious  specimen  of  her 
skill  in  irony  entitled  *  Bonner's  Ghost.'  This  little  poem, 
being  soon  afterwards  printed  by  Horace  Walpole,  at  the 
Strawberry  Hill  press,  circulated  briskly  and  widely 
through  the  great  world,  without  obtaining  formal  publica- 
tion, until  it  was  inserted,  twelve  years  subsequently,  in 
the  collected  edition  of  her  works. 

During  her  long  intervals  of  rural  retreat,  making 
equestrian  excursions  with  Patty,  her  favourite  colleague, 
she  thoroughly  investigated  the  state  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, and  explored  with  compassionate  interest  thirteen 
contiguous  parishes  left  without  a  resident  clergyman,  or 
any  other  competent  religious  instructors :  the  population 
including  not  only  the  most  ignorant,  the  poorest,  and  the 
lowest,  but  also  many  of  the  basest  and  vilest  inhabitants 
of  the  kingdom.  Conceiving  it  to  be  her  duty  to  attempt 
the  remedy  of  these  evils,  she  resolutely  set  to  work,  using 
all  her  energy,  sparing  neither  bodily  labour  nor  mental 
exertion,  bringing  into  play,  in  the  first  instance,  all  her 
persuasive  conversational  powers  to  obtain  clerical  sanc- 
tion, and  to  induce  ignorant  and  brutish  employers  to 
permit  their  labourers'  children  to  be  taught :  then  per- 
sonally instructing  intelligent  persons  how  and  what  to 
teach ;  providing  school-houses,  club-rooms,  books,  imple- 
ments, and  materials  for  industrial  occupation,  and  assist- 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  337 

ing  by  perpetual  supervision  and  example  the  carrying  out 
of  her  carefully-projected  schemes  for  Sunday  and  day- 
schools,  evening  instruction  for  adults,  clothing  associa- 
tions, and  female  benefit  societies.  Ten  of  the  forlorn 
parishes  were  ultimately  brought  under  this  beneficial 
system.  Friends  lent  their  pecuniary  aid  to  this  costly 
undertaking,  but  the  expenses  were  chiefly  defrayed  by 
Hannah  More  and  her  munificent  sisters,  and  Patty  audited 
the  accounts,  and  took  the  responsibility  of  general 
almoner.  The  habits  of  the  whole  family,  and  of  Hannah 
especially,  were  in  all  things  rigorously  neat,  methodical, 
and  orderly.  Every  one  of  the  sisters  was  a  woman  of 
business. 

With  the  close  of  the  year  1789,  the  four  Miss  Mores 
gave  up  their  school.  They  had  kept  it  up  for  thirty-two 
years,  sustaining  its  reputation  throughout  that  long  period 
as  the  best  conducted  establishment  for  the  education  of 
young  ladies  in  the  United  Kingdom.  The  sisters  had 
been  prosperous  from  the  first  in  the  moral  and  mental 
training  of  their  pupils,  and  in  making  money  and  friends. 
They  had  built  for  themselves  a  handsome  house  in  Great 
Pulteney  Street,  Bath,  overlooking  the  Sydney  Gardens, 
intending  to  divide  their  time  between  that  residence  and 
Hannah's  cottage  at  Cowslip  Green ;  and  they  took  pos- 
session of  their  new  abode  and  commenced  their  life  of 
comparative  leisure  in  the  month  of  January,  1790.  A 
school  of  sixty  girls  out  of  wealthy  families,  renewed  from 
time  to  time  through  so  many  years,  often  including  the 
children  of  former  pupils,  and  involving  the  personal  grati- 
tude and  esteem  of  these  relays,  and  of  the  respective 
kindred  and  connections  of  each,  must  of  necessity,  in 
itself  alone,  have  attached  to  the  Miss  Mores  a  multitude 
of  friends ;  besides  the  peers  and  prelates,  blue-stockings, 


338  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

and  members  of  the  worlds  of  literature  and  fashion,  who 
were  attached  by  the  magic  charm  of  Hannah's  fascinating 
talents,  and  who,  resisting  her  strenuous  efforts  to  dissolve 
the  spells  which  she  had  cast,  persevered  in  following  her 
not  only  to  Bath,  but  into  the  then  isolated  seclusion  to 
which  she  had  withdrawn. 

One  motive,  though  not  a  leading  one,  for  relinquishing 
her  attendance  in  London  during  its  seasons,  might  pro- 
bably be  the  embarrassment  which  she  anticipated  from 
meeting  face  to  face  the  personages  whose  practices  her 
works  were  intended  to  reprove  :  but  the  conviction  being 
forced  upon  her,  that  they  liked  her  not  a  whit  the  less, 
while  they  respected  her  the  more  for  her  admonitions, 
she  yielded  to  the  indications  of  increased  facilities  of  use- 
fulness, conscientiously  making  her  cheerful  companionship 
and  her  friendly  letters,  in  one  way  or  other,  incentives  to 
excellence.  When  people  came  after  her  for  instruction 
she  could  not  shut  them  out. 

It  is  said  that  Queen  Charlotte  was  the  first  to  detect 
the  hand  of  Hannah  More,  in  the  *  Thoughts  on  the 
Manners  of  the  Great/  A  sequel  to  that  celebrated  work 
appeared  in  1790,  under  the  title  of  'An  Estimate  of 
the  Keligion  of  the  Fashionable  World,  by  One  of  the 
Laity,'  which  was  immediately  known  to  be  hers,  and 
received  with  great  applause. 

In  1792,  at  the  urgent  suggestion  of  Bishop  Porteus 
that  she  would  write  some  tracts  for  circulation  among 
mechanics  and  other  workmen,  in  order  to  counteract  the 
pernicious  effects  of  papers  indefatigably  circulated  by 
seditious  infidels,  she  produced  the  Dialogue  of  '  Tillage 
Politics,  by  Will  Chip,'  which  was  hailed  by  competent 
judges  as  a  master-piece  in  its  kind.  It  fulfilled  its  pur- 
pose in  a  marvellous  manner.  Private  individuals  had  it 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  339 

reprinted  and  dispersed  by  thousands,  and  the  Govern- 
ment, having  proved  its  worth,  sent  tens  of  thousands,  and 
hundreds  of  thousands,  through  England,  Scotland,  Ire- 
land, and  the  colonies. 

In  1793  she  published,  as  an  antidote  to  Atheistic 
blasphemy,  and  for  the  pecuniary  relief  of  the  French 
emigrant  clergy,  her  'Bemarks  on  the  Speech  of  M. 
Dupont,'  which  brought  in  more  than  240?.  Her  personal 
compassion  and  that  of  her  sisters,  staunch  Protestants  as 
they  were,  had  been  stimulated  -  by  seeing  many  of  those 
exiled  priests  at  Bath,  where  frequent  welcomes  awaited 
them  at  the  hospitable  table  of  the  Mores. 

It  was  about  this  period  that  the  personal  friendship  of 
the  Mores  with  Mr.  Turner  of  Belmont,  chanced  to  be 
renewed.  Biding  past  Cowslip  Green,  not  knowing  to 
whom  it  belonged,  and  struck  with  the  prettiness  of  the 
cottage  and  grounds,  he  alighted  to  inspect  them  more 
closely.  Mary  More  happened  to  be  amusing  herself  in 
the  garden ;  she  recognized  Mr.  Turner,  and  invited  him 
into  the  parlour,  where  Hannah  sat  writing.  Agreeable 
conversation  ensued,  and  friendly  intercourse  was  re-esta- 
blished for  the  remainder  of  their  lives.  He  became  a  not 
unfrequent  guest  at  Cowslip  Green,  entered  with  interest 
into  their  beneficent  local  plans,  and  took  part  in  the 
annual  school  and  club  festivals  upon  the  Mendip  Hills. 
It  may  here  be  mentioned  that  Hannah  More  sent  him  a 
copy  of  each  of  her  works  as  soon  as  published ;  that  he 
daily  gave  precedency  at  his  own  table  to  the  toast  of 
"Hannah  More,"  always  spoke  of  her  with  affectionate 
reverence  as  the  most  excellent  and  gifted  of  women,  and 
bequeathed  to  her  at  his  death  a  legacy  of  a  thousand 
pounds. 

7.  2 


340  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Continuing  to  work  out  the  scheme  of  instructing  the 
labouring  classes  by  means  of  entertaining  tracts  and  broad 
sheets,  she  had  prepared  sufficient  materials  to  commence 
the  Cheap  Eepository  issue  in  1795.  The  *  Family  Maga- 
zine '  of  Mrs.  Trimmer  furnished  the  model  of  these  com- 
positions ;  and  during  three  successive  years  Hannah  More 
edited  every  month  a  tale,  a  ballad,  and  a  religious  ex- 
hortation. She  wrote  the  greater  number  of  them  herself, 
Patty  wrote  a  few,  Sarah  wrote  '  Sorrowful  Sam,'  Mr. 
Mason  and  some  other  authors,  contributed  the  rest.  The 
immediate  circulation  has  been  estimated  at  a  million  of 
copies  for  each  tract.  The  obvious  and  instant  good  they 
did  was  incalculable.  Her  'Riot'  was  known  to  have 
been  the  means  of  suppressing  dangerous  tumults  at  Bath 
and  at  Hull;  and  besides  many  well  authenticated  in- 
stances of  local  usefulness,  the  effect  of  the  Cheap  Eeposi- 
tory may  be  traced  in  the  alteration  which  took  place  in 
the  temper  of  the  times.  The  tracts  were  translated  into 
most  of  the  modern  languages  of  Europe,  and  had  an 
extensive  circulation  in  America.  Nor  has  their  spirit 
evaporated.  Thousands  still  continue  to  be  dispersed 
among  the  poor  in  the  English  and  Welsh  languages,  and 
add  to  the  happiness  of  many  a  cottage  home. 

In  1799  Hannah  More  published  her  i  Strictures  on  the 
Modern  System  of  Female  Education,  with  a  View  of  the 
Principles  and  Conduct  Prevalent  among  Women  of  Bank 
and  Fortune.'  This  work  had  occupied  her  attention  for 
several  previous  years.  How7  highly  the  British  public  ap- 
preciated her  labours  was  proved  by  the  sale  of  seven  large 
editions  of  these  '  Strictures'  in  the  course  of  twelve  months, 
while  royal  and  noble  friends  stood  foremost  in  grateful 
congratulation  of  her  successful  and  eminent  public  services. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  341 

At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Cadell,  her  next  literary  task 
was  the  revision  of  her  works  for  a  uniform  edition  in 
eight  volumes,  which  appeared  in  1801. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  this  brief  sketch  to  enter  into  the 
particulars  of  the  commotion  raised  in  1799  by  mistaken 
and  malevolent  persons  against  her  schools,  nor  to  do  more 
than  allude  to  the  simultaneous  calumnies  of  literary 
rivals,  full  of  envy  at  her  success  and  hatred  of  her  moral 
and  mental  excellence,  and  determined  at  all  hazards  to 
traduce  and  vilify  her  spotless  ^character.  Hitherto,  she 
had  been  speeded  through  life's  voyage  on  a  sunshiny 
track  by  favouring  wind  and  tide ;  now,  opposing  storms, 
a  gulf  stream,  and  darkness,  all  set  in  against  her.  She 
had  earned  a  good  name,  she  had  dearly  cherished  the 
approval  of  her  fellow-creatures,  and  now  she  was  to  learn 
experimentally  the  fickleness  of  human  favour.  Having 
devoted  herself  to  self-improvement  by  diligently  studying 
the  principles  of  right  conduct,  she  was  ready  to  test  their 
practical  force  when  trouble  came;  Providence  dealing 
with  such  characters  as  hers  as  the  potter  does  with  his 
choicest  wares,  first  delicately  drawing  and  colouring  the 
pattern,  and  then  placing  them  in  a  furnace  to  burn  it  in. 

For  more  than  three  years  was  she,  to  use  her  own 
heart-worn  words,  "  battered,  hacked,  scalped,  toma- 
hawked ; "  and  under  these  aggrieved  and  depressed 
feelings  her  health  gave  way,  and  she  terminated  her 
habitude,  of  nearly  thirty  years'  duration,  of  spending  the 
spring-time  at  Hampton.  The  Rev.  Henry  Thompson,  in 
his  '  Life  of  Hannah  More/  cites  a  paragraph  from  a  letter 
of  this  period,  written  to  Dr.  Whalley  by  Mrs.  Piozzi,  in 
which  she  observes : — 

"  *  I  hate  when  vice  can  bolt  her  arguments, 
And  virtue  has  no  tongue  to  check  her  pride,' 


342  LITEBARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

says  Milton ;  and  they  want  now  to  stop  the  warning  voice 
which  yet  would  save  us  if  men  would  permit.  So  valuable 
a  writer,  and  writings  so  well-timed  as  hers,  will  not  be 
found  again ;  and  if  their  vile  detractions  should  injure 
her  feeble  health,  the  mischief  done  would  be  past  my 
computation." 

Hundreds  of  sympathising  voices  comforted  her  under 
this  trial,  and  among  them  were  those  of  the  holiest  and 
most  diligent  prelates  of  the  Church. 

Meanwhile,  not  lying  supine  to  exaggerate  by  reflection 
the  force  of  each  malicious  stroke,  she  exerted  herself  as 
much  as  her  feeble  health  would  allow,  not  only  in  carry- 
ing on  her  local  charities,  personally  or  through  the 
agency  of  her  sisters,  but  also  in  laying  out  some  acres  of 
land,  which  she  had  purchased,  within  half  a  mile  of  the 
village  of  Wrington  and  in  the  same  parish ;  and  in 
planning  and  erecting  there  a  house,  larger,  more  substan- 
tial, and  more  commodious  than  her  summer  dwelling-place 
at  Cowslip  Green,  and  suited  to  be  a  comfortable  home  all 
the  year  round.  With  this  new  residence  her  sisters  were 
so  much  pleased  that  they  disposed  of  their  house  at  Bath, 
and  fixed  themselves  wholly  with  Hannah  at  Barley 
Wood  in  the  year  1802.  During  that  summer  Hannah 
recovered  herself  sufficiently  to  spend  some  weeks  at 
Fulham  with  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Porteus,  accompanied  by 
her  faithful  Martha.  Shame  and  disgrace,  though  cast 
upon  her  most  unjustly  and  by  the  unworthy,  had  proved 
to  her  the  bitterest  of  trials.  The  clouds  of  obloquy  were 
now  breaking  up  and  dissipating,  and  the  clear  brightness 
which  succeeded  cheered  her  spirit  for  fresh  labours. 

Her  intimacy  with  the  Countess  of  Elgin,  governess  to 
the  Princess  Charlotte  of  Wales,  and  her  personal  know- 
ledge of  the  sweet  and  intelligent  child,  then  presumptive 


LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  343 

heiress  of  the  British  Crown,  incited  her  ever  active  loyalty 
to  the  production,  in  1805,  of  her  '  Hints  for  the  Education 
of  a  Young  Princess/  for  which  she  received  the  thanks  of 
the  episcopal  preceptor  and,  through  him,  those  of  the 
Queen  and  royal  family.  Perhaps,  however,  the  most 
gratifying  encomium  which  she  obtained  on  this  occasion 
was  implied  by  the  words  of  the  aged  Elizabeth  Carter, 
who,  laying  her  hand  upon  the  arm  of  Hannah  More,  em- 
phatically said,  "  I  am  glad  I  have  lived  to  read  it." 

In  December,  1808,  'Ccelebs  in  Search  of  a  Wife' 
appeared  anonymously.  The  authorship  was  immediately 
recognised,  the  work  excited  an  immense  sensation,  the 
first  edition  was  sold  in  a  fortnight,  and  eleven  editions 
more  were  demanded  within  twelve  months. 

Early  in  the  year  1811,  she  published  her  'Practical 
Piety,  or  the  Influence  of  the  Religion  of  the  Heart  on 
the  Conduct  of  the  Life.'  Its  sale  and  its  celebrity  ex- 
ceeded even  those  of  '  Ccelebs.'  In  the  following  summer 
she  refreshed  her  health  and  spirits  by  a  visit  to  the  Eev. 
Thomas  Gisborne,  at  Yoxall  Lodge,  in  Staffordshire,  by 
exploring  that  picturesque  neighbourhood,  and  by  joining 
him  and  a  party  of  choice  friends  in  a  tour  through  some 
other  parts  of  England  and  an  excursion  into  Wales.  While 
sojourning  in  the  lovely  vale  of  Llangollen,  she  honoured 
its  Plas  Newydd  with  a  pilgrimage,  and  made  the  acquain- 
tance of  Lady  Eleanor  Butler  and  Miss  Ponsonby.  * 

Hannah  More  took  a  warm  interest  in  the  Welsh 
people,  and,  entering  into  the  plans  of  Bishop  Burgess  for 
improving  the  education  and  condition  of  the  native  clergy 
of  the  Principality,  liberally  subscribed  towards  those 
objects  during  a  period  of  twenty  years. 

In  the  spring  of  1812,  she  received  at  Barley  Wood  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Gisborne,  dated  "  Barniouth,  May  29, 1812," 


344  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

in  which,  relating  his  journey  from  Welshpool  to  Dolgelly, 
and  thence  to  his  place  of  sojourn,  he  describes  in  a  few 
well-selected  words  the  physical  geography  of  that  pecu- 
liar tract  of  country  with  unsurpassable  accuracy  and 
elegance.*  In  the  same  year  she  published  her  'Christian 
Morals,'  which  met  with  a  good  reception,  but  fell  short  of 
the  extreme  popularity  won  by  her  two  last  productions. 
All  her  books  had,  in  fact,  been  bought  up  with  avidity, 
and  edition  after  edition  continued  to  be  called  for  with 
insatiable  eagerness,  until  another  new  work  superseded 
in  some  degree  its  predecessor. 

The  happy  household  group  of  five,  which  had  remained 
unbroken  for  fifty-six  years  since  the  first  voluntary  do- 
mestication, and  inhabited  for  fifty  years  four  houses  of 
their  own  building  without  the  occurrence  of  a  death  in 
either,  forming  a  little  polity  so  well  compacted  by  mutual 
suitability  and  usefulness,  that  the  loss  of  either  of  its 
members  must  leave  a  crippled  frame,  approached  at 
length  its  inevitable  dissolution.  After  an  illness  of  only 
five  days,  the  calm  and  steadfast  spirit  of  Mary  More  de- 
parted in  blissful  hope  on  Easter  Sunday,  the  18th  of 
April,  1813.  This  grievous  shock  was  deeply  felt  by  the 
survivors,  although  they  bore  it  with  exemplary  fortitude. 
Hannah's  health  betrayed  her  mental  sufferings,  and  she 
went,  accompanied  by  Martha,  to  Lady  Olivia  Sparrow,  at 
Brampton  Park,  near  Huntingdon,  and  afterwards  made  a 
tour  of  visits  to  her  friends  in  Kent  and  Surrey,  in  order 
to  revive  her  shattered  strength. 

In  1815  she  manifested  her  renewed  energy  by  the 
publication  of  her  '  Essay  on  the  Character  and  Practical 
Writings  of  St.  Paul,'  a  work  which  more  than  sustained 
her  previous  reputation. 

*  Koberts,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  371-5. 


or 

V/NIVERSfTY 

• 

LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  345 

About  this  time,  her  clothes  having  accidentally  taken 
fire,  she  must  have  perished  in  the  flames  but  for  her  own 
presence  of  mind  and  the  heroic  courage  of  her  friend 
Miss  Eoberts.  Martha  More,  alluding  to  this  disaster  in  a 
letter  to  Dr.  Whalley,*  says  : — "  My  sister's  composure 
during  the  whole  exceeds  credibility ;  not  a  scream  or  the 
least  agitation  of  feature.  Upon  my  mentioning  this  to 
her  afterwards,  she  replied,  she  thought  all  was  over — 
making  a  bustle  would  answer  no  end;  and  she  was 
striving  to  turn  her  thoughts  another  way." 

Her  humble  estimate  of  herself,  and  her  ceaseless  and 
ever-renewing  efforts  to  live  up  to  that  high  standard  of 
excellence  which  she  had  raised  as  an  incentive  to  diligence 
in  others,  may  be  inferred  from  records  of  her  conversa- 
tion, extracts  from  her  journal,  and  letters  to  her  intimate 
friends. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Knox,  written  in  June,  1816,  Hannah 
More,  alluding  to  the  declining  health  of  her  sisters  Sarah 
and  Martha,  and  to  the  mortal  illness  of  her  sister  Eliza- 
beth, adds : — "  I  am  so  much  your  disciple — that  is,  so 
much  of  an  optimist,  as  to  see  a  graciously  providential 
hand  in  all  these  dealings.  I  feel,  even  at  my  age,  that  I 
stand  in  need  of  reiterated  correction.  My  temper  is 
naturally  gay.  This  gaiety  even  time  and  sickness  have 
not  much  impaired.  I  have  carried  too  much  sail.  My 
life,  upon  the  whole,  must  be  reckoned  an  uncommonly 
prosperous  and  happy  one.  I  have  been  blessed  with  more 
friends  of  a  superior  caste  than  have  often  fallen  to  the  lot 
of  so  humble  an  individual.  Nothing  but  the  grace  of 
God,  and  frequent  attacks  through  life  of  very  severe 
sickness,  could  have  kept  me  in  tolerable  order.  If  I  am 
no  better  with  all  these  visitations,  what  should  I  have 
*  Thompson's  '  Memoir,'  pp.  267-8. 


346  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

been  without  them  ?  No,  my  dear  sir,  I  have  never  yet 
felt  a  blow  of  which  I  did  not  perceive  the  indispensable 
necessity,  in  which,  on  reflection,  I  did  not  see  and  feel  the 
compassionate  hand  of  Divine  Mercy,  the  chastisement  of 
a  tender  Father."*  On  the  16th  day  of  the  same  month 
the  amiable  Elizabeth  More  sank  to  rest,  and  the  schools 
lost  in  her  their  inspector  of  needlework,  and  Barley  Wood 
the  most  motherly  of  its  mistresses. 

The  public  disturbances  among  the  labouring  classes  in 
the  winter  of  1816-17  summoned  Hannah  More  again  to 
her  writing-desk,  and  she  produced  'The  Death  of  Mr. 
Fantom,'  *  The  Delegate/  '  The  Valley  of  Tears,'  and  some 
other  tracts,  as  additions  to  her  Cheap  Kepository  store. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  1817,  after  long  protracted  sufferings 
borne  with  a  martyr's  constancy,  died  Sarah  More ;  the 
sisters  having  thus  far  passed  away  in  the  order  of  birth. 

In  1818,  Hannah  edited  another  uniform  edition  of  her 
own  works,  and,  at  the  request  of  Sir  Alexander  Johnston, 
wrote  *  The  Feast  of  Freedom,'  a  dramatic  piece  for  trans- 
lation into  the  Cingalese  language,  to  be  performed  by  a 
native  choir  at  anniversary  celebrations  of  the  12th  of 
August,  1816,  from  which  date  all  the  children  of  slaves  in 
the  island  of  Ceylon  were  emancipated. 

Hannah  and  Martha,  still  spared  to  each  other,  con- 
tinued, united  in  heart  and  in  pursuit,  to  enjoy  the  bless- 
ings of  life  and  to  diffuse  happiness  around  them.  In  the 
summer  of  1819,  Hannah  More  published  her  '  Moral 
Sketches  of  Prevailing  Opinions  and  Manners,  Foreign 
and  Domestic,'  with  'Keflections  on  Prayer'  appended. 
The  first  edition  was  sold  in  one  day,  and  "realised"  3000L 

On  the  14th  t  of  September,  1819,  four  days  of  agonising 

*  Koberts's  '  Memoir,'  vol.  iii.,  p.  462. 

f  In  the  text  of  Mr.  Thompson's  '  Memoir '  this  date   is  given  :  see 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  347 

pain,  arising  from  internal  inflammation,  terminated  the 
mortal  existence  of  Martha  More.  In  death,  as  in  life, 
cheerful  acquiescence  in  the  will  of  God,  care  for  the  poor, 
and  intense  affection  for  her  sister  Hannah  prevailed. 
Martha  More  left  behind  her  a  large  collection  of  mate- 
rials, carefully  put  by  from  time  to  time,  which  she  in- 
tended to  be  wrought  up  into  a  memoir  of  the  sister  whom 
from  infancy  she  had  admired  and  delighted  in  beyond  all 
other  human  objects  of  attachment.  Unfortunately,  the 
biographer  selected  by  Martha  preceded  Hannah  to  the 
tomb,  and  those  rich  and  valuable  stores  fell  consequently 
into  the  hands  of  a  well-meaning  but  incompetent  gentle- 
man. 

The  death  of  Martha  More  was  the  most  dreadful  loss 
that  Hannah  ever  sustained.  She  felt  it  with  all  the  keen- 
ness of  her  sensitive  nature ;  while,  strong  in  faith,  she 
bore  it  with  unshaken  fortitude,  accepted  every  solace 
offered  by  condoling  friends,  and  rose  elastic  from  her 
sorrow  to  pursue  her  career  of  usefulness  by  working  at  the 
tracts  for  the  people,  which  she  retouched,  adapted  to  the 
requirements  of  the  time,  and  published  in  one  volume. 

In  1820,  while  suffering  from  severe  illness,  she  prepared 
a  new  edition  of  her  '  Moral  Sketches '  for  the  press,  and 
prefixed  to  it  an  obituary  notice  of  King  George  III. 
Successful  authorship  had  become  a  vapid  thing  since 
Patty,  who  rejoiced  in  it,  was  gone  ;  and  the  only  satisfac- 
tion Hannah  could  now  derive  from  it  flowed  from  the 
consciousness  of  devoting  an  intrusted  talent  to  its  proper 
use. 

She  had  always  been  accustomed  to  practise  needlework, 

p.  288.  In  the  copy  of  the  monumental  inscription,  at  p.  328,  the  16th  of 
September  occurs.  The  latter  is  probably  erroneous ;  the  age  annexed 
certainly  is  so.  Mr.  Roberts  merely  says  that  she  died  "  in  September." 


348  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

and  she  excelled  in  the  ornamental  kinds.  Ever  intent  on 
multiplying  opportunities  of  being  useful,  even  in  trivial 
ways,  she  made  a  habit,  when  old  age  came  on,  of  supply- 
ing the  stalls  of  her  friends  at  charitable  bazaars  with 
knitted  socks  and  shoes  for  babies,  and  other  fancy  manu- 
factures, and  often  accompanied  them  with  verses  com- 
posed for  the  occasion,  to  give  an  impulse  to  the  sale.  In 
1821  she  wrote,  for  the  use  of  a  child  of  one  of  her 
servants,  some  nursery  verses,  which  she  was  prevailed 
upon  to  publish  in  an  enlarged  form,  under  the  title  of 
*  Bible  Khymes  on  the  Names  of  all  the  Books  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  with  Allusion  to  some  of  the  Prin- 
cipal Incidents  and  Characters.' 

In  1822  she  suffered  another  access  of  severe  illness ; 
and,  after  a  partial  recovery,  lasting  for  some  months,  was 
seized  in  1824  with  yet  another,  of  a  kind  which  baffled 
the  skill  of  her  anxious  medical  advisers,  and  induced  them 
to  pronounce  her  case  utterly  hopeless.  At  this  time  she 
directed  the  extraction  of  various  passages  to  be  made  from 
her  works  and  arranged  in  a  certain  order,  dictated  a 
preface,  and  sent  the  little  volume  to  the  press,  under  the 
title  of  '  The  Spirit  of  Prayer.'  The  whole  of  the  first 
edition  was  bespoken  before  it  appeared.  She  regarded 
herself  as  a  dying  woman,  and  wrote  from  what  was 
"virtually,"  as  Mr.  Thompson  has  observed,  though  not 
"actually,"  her  deathbed.  She  rallied,  however,  and 
again  attained  sufficient  strength  to  see  her  friends,  to 
enjoy  their  companionship,  and  to  interest  herself  in  the 
affairs  of  the  busy  world. 

Hannah  More,  being  thus  left  alone  in  authority  over 
her  household,  prevented  by  ill  health  from  leaving  the 
two  up-stairs  rooms  in  which  she  lived  and  saw  visitors, 
continued,  as  regularly  as  she  could,  to  instruct  her 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  349 

servants  in  their  religious  duties,  and  to  offer  up  family 
prayer  with  them  personally  or  by  deputy.  Kelying  on 
her  knowledge  of  their  obedient  conduct  in  former  years, 
on  the  efficacy  of  the  solemn  exhortation  addressed  to 
them  by  her  sister  Martha  when  dying,  and  on  the  result 
of  her  own  ceaseless  endeavours  to  teach  them  to  be  good, 
and  to  attach  them  by  kindness  to  herself,  she  entertained 
neither  distrust  nor  suspicion,  and  indulgently  regarded 
the  increase  in  each  year's  expenditure  as  caused  by  de- 
fective judgment  rather  than  by  want  of  faithfulness.  At 
length,  however,  the  sad  truth,  long  evident  to  lookers-on, 
burst  suddenly  upon  the  knowledge  of  Hannah  More,  that 
her  eight  trusted  servants  were  dishonest,  intemperate,  and 
corrupt ;  that  they  habitually  conspired  in  the  embezzle- 
ment and  unlawful  consumption  of  her  property,  and  led 
lives  which  made  her  house  a  scandal,  instead  of  a  model, 
to  the  neighbourhood.  Under  the  anguish  of  this  dis- 
covery, convinced  how  much  age,  sickness,  and  previous 
habits,  subjected  her  to  domestic  imposition,  and,  in  spite 
of  her  large  fortune,  rendered  her  dependent  on  the  atten- 
tion of  watchful  friends,  she  yielded  reluctantly  to  the 
proposal  of  those  who  wished  her  to  remove  to  Clifton,  in 
order  that  they  might,  without  neglecting  other  duties, 
devote  themselves  more  effectually  to  her  comfort.  It  is 
probable  the  consideration  that  she  could  there  live  at  less 
expense  than  was  necessary  at  Barley  Wood,  and  would 
thus  be  enabled  to  enlarge  her  charitable  outlay,  had  also 
an  influence  on  this  decision.  The  notion  that  a  perma- 
nent diminution  of  property  obliged  her  to  change  her  resi- 
dence is  stated  on  good  authority  to  have  been  utterly 
erroneous.  Looking  her  last  at  the  spot  she  loved  best  on 
earth,  Hannah  More  gently  exclaimed,  "  I  am  driven  like 
Eve  out  of  Paradise,  but  not  by  angels ! "  It  wrung  her 


350  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

heart  to  go,  but  she  resigned  herself  to  the  trial,  and  went 
through  it  without  flinching.  On  the  18th  of  April,  1828, 
she  removed  to  No.  4,  Windsor  Terrace,  Clifton,  and  there 
for  four  years  enjoyed  the  society  of  the  numerous  friends 
from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  who  sought  the  advantage 
of  her  conversation.  She  still  carried  on,  both  in  auto- 
graph and  by  dictation,  an  extensive  correspondence, 
superintended  her  female  clubs  and  three  remaining 
schools,  and  diligently  persevered  in  doing  good  in  every 
way  and  by  every  means  which  her  ingenious  and  active 
mind  could  devise. 

Notwithstanding  her  feeble  constitution  and  frequent 
illnesses,  she  is  described  by  her  friends  as  having  always 
looked  young  of  her  age,  and  as  remaining  to  the  last  free 
from  the  bodily  infirmities  usually  attendant  upon  ad- 
vanced life. 

Besides  the  portraits  already  mentioned  in  this  epitome 
of  her  life,  three  others  were  taken :  one  at  Barley  Wood, 
by  an  artist  vaguely  designated  as  "  Mr.  Bean's  son-in-law, 

S ,"  and  two  still  later  by  Pickersgill,  one  of  them 

being  done  for  Sir  Thomas  Dyke  Acland,  and  the  other  for 
E.  L.  Gwatkin,  Esq. 

In  September,  1832,  she  had  a  serious  illness,  and 
from  that  period  her  memory  failed,  and  her  fine  faculties 
gradually  became  impaired,  until  she  sunk  into  an  almost 
unconscious  state,  never,  however,  forgetting  to  be  kind, 
holy,  and  devout.  "  On  the  7th  of  September,  1833,"  says 
Mr.  Thompson,  the  best  of  her  biographers,  "the  pious 
and  benevolent  spirit  of  Hannah  More  gently,  and  almost 
imperceptibly,  passed  the  barrier  of  time." 

She  bequeathed  ten  thousand  pounds  to  various  cha- 
ritable and  religious  societies,  and  the  residue  of  her  large 
fortune  to  the  augmentation  of  the  endowment  of  the 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  351 

district  church  of  St.  Philip  and  St.  Jacob,  in  the  city  of 
Bristol. 

Having  been  born  on  the  2nd  of  February,  1745,  she 
had  at  her  decease  attained  the  age  of  eighty-eight  years, 
seven  months,  and  five  days. 

The  shops  in  the  city  of  Bristol  were  shut  and  the 
church-bells  rung  muffled  peals  as  the  funeral  procession 
passed  through,  bearing  the  corpse  of  that  sickly  younger 
child  of  a  charity-schoolmaster,  who  had  become  one  of 
the  most  illustrious  women  that  ever  lived,  and  "one  of 
the  most  indefatigable  labourers  in  the  husbandry  of 
God,"  *  to  her  grave  in  Wrington  churchyard,  honoured 
and  mourned  by  the  princes  and  people  of  many  lands. 

The  mortal  remains  of  the  five  sisters  rest  together 
under  a  large  stone  slab,  enclosed  by  an  iron  railing  and 
overshadowed  by  a  yew-tree.  A  mural  tablet  in  the 
parish-church  records  their  memory.  Of  Hannah  most 
truly  might  it  be  said — 

"  Marble  need  not  mark  thine  ashes, 

Sculpture  need  not  tell  of  thee, 
For  thine  image  in  thy  writings, 
And  on  many  a  soul  shall  be."t 

She  was  conversant  with  the  social  life  of  England,  from 
the  court  of  the  Sovereign,  through  each  particular  class 
colouring  the  widening  concentric  circles,  even  to  the 
darkened  outskirts  and  waste  places,  the  scattered  haunts 
of  pariahs  and  castaways  in  depravity.  Born  in  a  low 
grade  of  the  middle  class,  and  occupying  through  life  a 
higher  grade  of  the  same  class,  she  opened  for  herself  the 
way  to  a  station  of  honour  in  the  most  elevated  social 
circles  of  her  country,  became  a  companion  of  the  noblest 

*  Alexander  Knox  thus  described  her. 

t  Philips's  Translation  of  Williams  of  Pantycelyn's  'Monody  on  the 
Death  of  the  Rev.  Gryfiith  Jones  of  Llanddowror.' 


352  LITERABY  WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

by  birth,  the  most  conspicuous  by  rank  and  position,  and 
the  most  eminent  for  genius,  acquirements,  public  services, 
and  moral  excellence. 

Besides  the  friends  incidentally  mentioned  in  the  fore- 
going pages,  she  held  intercourse  at  different  periods  of 
her  career  with  many  other  eminent  men,  among  whom 
were  Bishops  Newton  and  Watson,  Gibbon  the  historian, 
Soame  Jenyns,  Boswell,  De  Lolme,  Mackenzie,  the  Wartons, 
Harris  the  author  of  'Hermes/  Jonas  Han  way,  John 
Newton,  the  Burneys,  Sir  William  Jones,  Bryant,  General 
Paoli,  Hurdis,  Paley,  Dean  Milner,  the  Neckars,  John 
Bowdler,  Dr.  Buchanan,  Pepys,  Stephen,  Vansittart, 
Henry  Thornton,  Dr.  Chalmers,  Archbishop  Magee,  and 
the  Macaulays.  As  years  passed  on,  her  reading  having 
kept  pace  with  the  increased  fecundity  of  the  printing- 
press,  she  was  found  ever  alive  to  the  interests  of  the 
present  day  and  of  the  transient  hour,  a  lively  politician, 
and  a  zealous  philanthropist. 

Perhaps  there  never  lived  another  Englishwoman  whose 
conversation  was  at  once  so  generally  pleasing  and  so 
extensively  useful.  It  was  not  merely  in  the  superficial 
intercourse  of  morning  visits,  dinner  parties,  and  evening 
assemblies  that  her  companionship  won  estimation ;  she 
was  welcomed  to  the  hearths  and  homes  of  the  most  ex- 
cellent and  eminent  persons  in  their  hours  of  especial  joy 
and  sorrow,  to  share  the  calm  pleasures  of  domestic  retire- 
ment, as  an  attendant  on  their  dying  beds,  and  a  sympa- 
thizing comforter  of  desolate  mourners.  At  home  she  was 
felt  to  be  the  most  amiable  of  women ;  abroad,  the  most 
winning  of  female  instructors. 

That  from  the  instrumentality  of  Kobert  Kaikes  and 
Hannah  More  proceeded,  in  a  great  measure,  the  restora- 
tion of  vital  energy  to  our  Church  of  England  congrega- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  353 

tions  is  undeniable;  and  Jane  Porter*  did  but  concur 
in  the  general  verdict  of  three  successive  generations  who 
hailed  Hannah  More  as  their  living  instructor,  and  pro- 
nounced her  to  have  been  a  principal  agent  in  rectifying 
the  morals  and  manners  of  the  country. 

It  has  been  erroneously  averred  that  her  ethical  writings 
are  mere  digests  of  those  of  deeper  theologians.  No  one 
conversant  with  the  lucubrations  of  theologians  and  with 
her  productions  could  for  an  instant  maintain  such  an 
opinion.  The  total  absence  of  metaphysical  disquisition, 
and  of  abstruse  speculation  of  every  kind,  the  blending  and 
fusing  of  all  doctrines  with  their  actuating  tendencies  and 
practical  effects,  universally  characterize  her  religious 
essays,  which  always  bear  the  unmistakable  impression 
of  thoughts  evolved  and  worded  by  her  own  mind,  and 
often  reveal  the  personal  experience  which  warmed  and 
deepened  their  indentation.  Dramatic  talent  enlivens  all 
her  works,  which  are  never  dull  and  seldom  tedious. 

She  ceaselessly  inculcated  upon  herself  and  others  that 
our  business  is  not  to  try  to  hide  what  is  amiss  in  us,  but 
to  set  the  conscience  by  the  rule  of  absolute  right,  and  to 
endeavour  with  simple,  earnest,  and  still  renewing  intensity 
of  purpose,  to  correct  every  casual  deviation,  and  to  keep 
strictly  to  that  rule,  watching  vigilantly  against  all  unfair- 
ness, dishonesty,  and  falseness  of  heart.  Thus,  recognizing 
the  real  truth  without  palliation  or  disguise,  she  insisted 
that  just  as  a  surgeon  would  examine  a  wound  preparatory 
to  its  cure,  just  as  a  builder  would  survey  a  dilapidated 
dwelling-house  with  the  intention  of  repairing  it,  so  all 
the  evils  of  our  hearts  and  lives  must  be  ascertained,  and 
we  must  severally  be  content  to  see  ourselves  in  our  worst 
aspects  before  we  can  safely  set  about  a  sincere  and  thorough 

*  Roberta's  'Memoir,'  vol.  iii.,  p.  443. 

2    A 


354  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

reformation.  These  are  not  her  own  words,  nor  are  they 
a  paraphrase  upon  them,  but  merely  an  inference  drawn 
from  the  tenor  of  her  works. 

Those  works  have  been  translated  into  all  the  principal 
modern  languages  of  Europe,  and  into  many  Asiatic  lan- 
guages ;  they  have  been  read  by  a  large  proportion  of  the 
earth's  inhabitants,  in  the  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  and 
everywhere  they  have  borne  messages  of  holiness  and 
peace,  and  led  men  to  the  study  of  the  Bible. 

Certainly  no  one  ever  convicted  her  contemporaries  and 
companions  of  folly  or  of  guilt  with  so  little  offence  or 
such  obvious  and  great  success.  Her  reproofs  are  void  of 
harshness;  her  exhortations  replete  with  persuasive  in- 
fluence. Her  adaptive  skill  was  extraordinary ;  all  her 
didactic  pieces  fitted  exactly  into  the  places  which  needed 
them.  Her  writings  possess  invincible  force  in  their 
earnest  sincerity ;  an  irresistible  charm  in  their  never- 
failing  kindness.  Witty  and  epigrammatic,  her  sparkling 
diction  advantageously  sets  forth  her  argumentative  good 
sense.  Whatever  she  said  or  wrote  flew  straight  to  the 
mark  and  hit  the  bull's-eye  of  the  subject.  They  manifest 
admirable  judgment  in  the  selection  and  development  of 
thoughts ;  absolute  originality  appears  only  in  the  judicial 
acts  of  her  keenly-observant  and  discriminating  intellect, 
and  in  the  felicitous  application  of  illustrative  similies. 

Probably  no  woman  ever  read  more  books,  or  to  better 
purpose,  had  more  various  and  extensive  opportunities  of 
exercising  the  faculty  of  observation,  or  so  sagaciously  im- 
proved it.  No  female  writer  possesses  more  copious  stores 
of  English  words  and  phrases,  erudite,  rhetorical,  conver- 
sational, and  colloquial.  Her  command  of  language  is 
commensurate  with  the  supplies  furnished  by  the  national 
literature  from  the  days  of  Sir  Thomas  More  to  her  own. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  .!.V> 

It  is  often  said  (1860)  that  the  writings  of  Hannah  More 
are  slight  things,  that  they  have  had  their  day  and  need 
not  now  be  read.  This  is  a  mistaken  notion.  Let  any 
well-educated  woman,  or  any  sensible  man,  candidly  go 
through  her  '  Thoughts  on  the  Importance  of  the  Manners 
of  the  Great,'  her  l  Strictures  on  Female  Education,'  or 
either  of  her  treatises,  and  the  conviction  must  ensue  that 
there  is  therein  a  strong  vitality  which  never  can  become 
either  despicable  or  useless,  and  that  her  works  ought 
still  to  be  read  much  more  generally  than  they  are. 
They  contain  plain  truths,  clearly  and  pleasantly  stated, 
shaped  indeed  to  meet  the  moral  exigencies  of  the  upper 
circles  of  social  life  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and,  in  so 
far  as  mutable  customs,  habits,  and  manners,  are  made  the 
subject  of  remark,  have  become  in  some  few  particulars 
obsolete:  but  human  nature,  with  its  manifestations  of 
ignorance  and  vanity,  its  depraved  bias  and  proneness  to 
direct  its  affections,  desires,  and  purposes,  to  anything 
rtither  than  to  God,  remains  the  same  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  the  practical  wisdom  which  turned  the 
tide  of  error  and  raised  the  tone  of  contemporary  cha- 
racter is  still  efficacious,  in  its  bright  serenity,  to  light  the 
course  of  many  voyagers  over  the  glittering  and  delusive 
waves  of  the  passing  world.  Her  l  Essay  on  the  Character 
of  St.  Paul '  is  more  cosmopolitan  in  its  nature,  and  more 
generally  applicable  to  people  of  all  ranks  in  all  genera- 
tions, than  the  rest. 

Some  of  her  *  Repository  Tracts,'  addressed  to  the  lower 
orders  of  people,  contain  not  only  the  element  of  perennial 
usefulness,  but  a  sublimity  of  moral  and  devotional  feeling 
which  the  plain  and  almost  rude  simplicity  of  the  verbal 
vehicle  enhances  and  endears.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
'  Shepherd  of  Salisbury  Plain.' 

2  A  2 


356  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Her  style  has  been  censured  for  the  frequent  repetition 
of  the  same  thought  in  different  forms :  this,  although 
sometimes  blamable,  will  often  be  found  necessary  in 
addressing  indolent  and  superficial  readers,  as  orators 
experience  a  similar  mode  of  composition  to  be  for  their 
audience.  Iteration,  not  tautology,  is  the  proper  term  for 
such  a  method  of  impressing  truths  by  renewed  strokes. 
*  Coalebs '  treating,  as  old  Chaucer  sings, — 

"  Of  storial  tiling  that  touchetli  gentiless, 
And  eke  morality  and  holiness," 

shows  more  than  any  other  of  her  separate  works  Hannah 
More's  compass  of  mind  and  the  versatility  of  her  faculties. 
There  is  the  dramatic  energy  which  excited  the  admiration 
of  Garrick,  the  delicate  irony  which  charmed  Horace 
Walpole,  the  satiric  point  which  delighted  Dr.  Johnson, 
the  fineness  of  allusion  which  thrilled  Mrs.  Montagu, 
combined  with  the  penetrating  insight  which  astonished 
alike  the  simple  and  sagacious,  the  good  sense  which 
peasants  could  appreciate,  and  the  benevolence  which 
made  her  universally  beloved.  If  her  other  works  are 
considered  as  pictures,  this  may  be  called  a  stereoscope  of 
society. 

Her  poetry  is  neither  "  simple,  sensuous,  nor  passionate," 
seldom  pathetic,  and  never  sublime.  The  diction  is  usually 
correct  and  concise,  the  versification  sufficiently  harmonious 
to  prevent  the  subject  from  being  injured  by  the  medium. 
In  her  blank  verse  the  metrical  and  grammatical  com- 
binations regularly  coincide,  forming  usually  a  stately 
rhythm.  Her  tragedies,  sacred  dramas,  and  all  her  poems 
are  formed  on  those  principles  of  composition  which  the 
English  writers  of  Queen  Anne's  days  adopted  from  the 
French  imitators  of  the  Greek  and  Koman  authors,  prin- 
ciples which  continued  to  influence  the  style  of  all  the 


LITERARY   \VOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  357 

chief  poets  of  Hannah  More's  early  and  middle  life.  Her 
I  MM -try,  like  theirs,  is  essentially  artificial.  It  partakes 
sometimes  of  the  character  of  Dr.  Johnson's  compositions 
in  verse,  sometimes  of  those  of  Mason,  and  not  ^infrequently 
it  follows  other  contemporary  models,  bearing  also  invariably 
the  tone  of  good  society,  excepting  in  her  *  Ballads  for 
the  People,'  which  resemble  other  rustic  verses  of  the 
period. 

In  poetry,  as  well  as  in  prose,  her  chief  business  lay 
with  human  nature,  its  feelings  and  thoughts,  its  desires 
and  actions.     With  Pope  she  agreed  that — 
"  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man  ;" 

and  the  weal  and  woe  of  individuals,  as  mortal  sojourners 
and  immortal  beings,  became  the  subject  of  her  daily 
labour  and  her  nightly  vigilance.  'The  Search  after 
Happiness'  has  great  and  durable  value  from  its  keen 
analysis  of  human  motives. 

'Sir  Eldred  of  the  Bower'  is  shaped  in  the  fashion  of 
her  early  days,  after  the  ballad-model  given  by  Bishop 
Percy  in  his  '  Keliques,'  then  high  in  public  favour.  It 
has  very  little  merit,  either  intrinsic  or  extrinsic.  The 
moral  teaches  that — 

"  The  deadliest  wounds  with  which  we  bleed 

Our  crimes  inflict  alone, 
Man's  mercies  from  God's  hand  proceed, 
His  miseries  from  his  own." 

Lines,  by  the  bye,  which  re-echo  the  sound  of  part  of  a 
stanza  in  Gray's  'Ode  on  a  distant  prospect  of  Eton 
College,'— 

**  To  each  his  sufferings  :  all  are  men 
Condemned  alike  to  groaii, 
The  tender  for  another's  woes, 
The  unfeeling  for  his  own." 

1  The  Bleeding  Rock '  resembles  very  closely  the  trans- 
lations  made  by  English  poets  of  the  early  Georgian 


358  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

period,  from  some  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses.  The  ap- 
pended moral  is — 

"  That  half  the  mischiefs  youth  and  beauty  know, 
From  vanity's  exhaustless  fountain  flow." 

Her  Epitaphs  are  appropriate,  terse,  and  pointed :  every 
one  of  them  conveys  admonitory  truth. 

Her  Hymns  are  trite  and  insipid.  Her  '  Sacred 
Dramas/  notwithstanding  the  disadvantages  attendant  on 
their  very  nature,  cannot  be  attentively  read  without  enter- 
tainment and  respect  for  the  writer's  ability. 

Hannah  More  herself  considered  the  plot  of  her  '  In- 
flexible Captive'  as  deficient  in  those  stirring  incidents 
which  prove  effective  on  the  stage.  The  blank  verse  is 
well  measured,  the  sentiments  are  elevated  and  appro- 
priate, the  characters  distinctly  drawn,  and  the  whole 
drama  indicates  real  though  immature  talent  for  tragedy. 

*  Percy '  is  avowedly  founded  upon  M.  de  Belloy's 
French  drama  of  *  Gabrielle  de  Vergy,'  taken  by  him  from 
the  horrible  old  story  of  Raoul  de  Coucy  and  Madame  de 
Faiel,  All  the  revolting  circumstances  are  omitted  by 
Hannah  More,  and  the  resemblance  remains  so  slight  in 
the  details  that  it  seems  almost  punctilious  to  acknowledge 
the  derivation  of  its  plan.  She  has  drawn  the  characters 
with  an  able  hand,  given  true  life  and  spirit  to  the 
dialogue,  and  portrayed  the  emotions  of  disappointed 
affection  in  three  different  personages,  with  great  dis- 
criminative power,  showing  the  jealous  rage  of  Douglas, 
the  despairing  constancy  of  Percy,  and  the  conscientious 
submission  under  heart-rending  circumstances  of  Edwina, 
in  a  manner  unparalleled  by  any  of  her  female  predecessors 
or  early  contemporaries.  The  blank  verse  is  good,  and 
rises  occasionally  to  pathetic  eloquence.  '  Percy,'  on  the 
whole,  must  be  allowed  to  possess  so  few  faults  and  so 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         35!) 

many  dramatic  merits  as  justly  to  entitle  Hannah  More  to 
a  durable  niche  among  the  tragic  poets  of  England.  l  The 
Fatal  Falsehood '  is  in  all  respects  inferior  to  '  Percy/  and 
there  is  an  improbable  renewal  of  the  complications  of  the 
plot  by  absurd  means,  which  spoils  the  bold  and  clever 
first  conception. 

Her  '  Slave  Trade '  is  a  good  didactic  poem,  containing 
many  effective  passages ;  for  instance : — 

"Strange  power  of  soiig  !  the  strain  that  warms  the  heart 
Seems  the  same  inspiration  to  impart ; 
Touched  by  thq  extrinsic  energy  alone, 
We  think  the  flame  which  melts  us  is  our  own ; 
Deceived,  for  genius  we  mistake  delight, 
Charmed  as  we  read,  we  fancy  we  can  write." 

*  Florio '  is  a  clever  piece  of  satire,  indicating  that 
keenness  of  observation,  and  that  capability  of  estimating 
morals  and  manners,  and  prescribing  for  the  cure  of  their 
disorders,  which,  in  after  years,  rendered  Hannah  More 
the  most  distinguished  and  the  most  useful  Christian 
monitor  of  her  time.  Whatever  subject  she  touches, 
whether  in  prose  or  verse,  she  enriches  with  an  accumula- 
tion of  information,  illustrates  with  similies,  and  sets  forth 
with  artistic  skill  in  the  most  striking  and  pleasing  light. 
'  The  Bas  Bleu '  is  a  vivid  panorama  of  polished  society, 
drawn  from  the  life.  The  descriptions  of  conversation 
which  it  contains  are  among  the  best  in  English  poetry  :— 

"  Yet  not  from  low  desire  to  shine 
Does  genius  toil  in  learning's  mine  ; 
Not  to  indulge  in  idle  vision, 
But  strike  new  light  by  strong  collision. 
Of  Conversation,  wisdom's  friend, 
This  is  the  object  and  the  end, 
Of  moral  truth,  man's  proper  science, 
With  sense  and  learning  in  alliance, 
To  search  the  depths,  and  thence  produce 
What  tends  to  practice  and  to  use. 
And  next  in  value  we  shall  find 
What  mends  the  taste,  and  forms  the  mind. 


360  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

If  high  those  truths  in  estimation, 

Whose  search  is  crown'd  with  demonstration 

To  these  assign  110  scanty  praise, 

Our  taste  which  clear,  our  views  which  raise. 

For  grant  that  mathematic  truth 

Best  balances  the  mind  of  youth  ; 

Yet  scarce  the  truth  of  taste  is  found 

To  grow  from  principles  less  sound. 

O'er  books,  the  mind  inactive  lies, 
Books,  the  mind's  food,  not  exercise  ; 
Her  vigorous  wing  she  scarcely  feels, 
Till  use  the  latent  strength  reveals ; 
Her  slumbering  energies  call'd  forth, 
She  rises,  conscious  of  her  worth  ; 
And,  at  her  new  found  powers  elated, 
Thinks  them  not  rous'd,  but  new  created. 

Enlightened  spirits !  you,  who  know 
What  charms  from  polish'd  converse  flow, 
Speak,  for  you  can,  the  pure  delight 
When  kindling  sympathies  unite  ; 
When  corresponding  tastes  impart 
Communion  sweet  from  heart  to  heart. 
You  ne'er  the  cold  gradations  need 
Which  vulgar  souls  to  union  lead  ; 
No  dry  discussion  to  unfold 
The  meaning  caught  ere  well 't  is  told  : 
In  taste,  in  learning,  wit,  or  science, 
Still  kindred  souls  demand  alliance  : 
Each  in  the  other  joys  to  find 
The  image  answering  to  his  mind ; 
But  sparks  electric  only  strike 
On  souls  electrical  alike; 
The  flash  of  intellect  expires, 
Unless  it  meet  congenial  fires  : 
The  language  to  th'  elect  alone 
Is,  like  the  mason's  mystery  known  ; 
In  vain  the  unerring  sign  is  made 
To  him  who  is  not  of  the  trade. 
What  lively  pleasure  to  divine, 
The  thought  implied,  the  hinted  line, 
To  feel  allusion's  artful  force, 
And  trace  the  image  to  its  source  ! 
Quick  memory  blends  her  scattered  rays 
Till  fancy  kindles  at  the  blaze  ; 
The  works  of  ages  start  to  view, 
And  ancient  wit  elicits  new. 


But  let  the  letter'd  and  the  fair, 
And  chiefly  let  the  wit  beware  ; 


LITEKARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  361 

You,  whose  warm  spirits  never  fail, 

Forgive-  the  hint  which  ends  my  tale, 

Oh  shun  the  perils  which  attriul 

On  wit,  on  warmth,  and  heed  your  friend  ; 

Though  science  nurs'd  you  in  her  bowers, 

Though  fancy  crown  your  brow  with  flowers, 

Each  thought,  though  bright  invention  fill, 

Though  Attic  bees  each  word  distil ; 

Yet,  if  one  gracious  power  refuse 

Her  gentle  influence  to  infuse  ; 

If  she  withhold  her  magic  spell, 

Nor  in  the  social  circle  dwell ; 

In  vain  shall  listening  crowds  approve, 

They'll  praise  you,  but  they  will  not  love. 

What  is  this  power,  you  're  loth  to  mention, 

This  charm,  this  witchcraft  ?  't  is  attention  : 

Mute  angel,  yes ;  thy  looks  dispense 

The  silence  of  intelligence  ; 

Thy  graceful  form  I  well  discern, 

In  act  to  listen  and  to  learn  ; 

'T  is  thou  for  talents  shalt  obtain 

That  pardon  wit  would  hope  in  vain ; 

Thy  wondrous  power,  thy  secret  charm, 

Shall  envy  of  her  sting  disarm  ; 

Thy  silent  flattery  soothes  our  spirit, 

And  we  forgive  eclipsing  merit ; 

Our  jealous  souls  no  longer  burn, 

Nor  hate  thee,  though  thou  shine  in  turn  ; 

The  sweet  atonement  screens  the  fault, 

And  love  and  praise  are  cheaply  bought. 

With  some  complacency  to  hear 
Though  somewhat  long  the  tale  appear, 
The  dull  relation  to  attend, 
Which  mars  the  story  you  could  mend  ; 
'T  is  more  than  wit,  't  is  moral  beauty, 
'T  is  pleasure  rising  out  of  duty. 
Nor  vainly  think,  the  tune  you  waste, 
When  temper  triumphs  over  taste." 

Her  '  Sensibility '  must,  on  the  whole,  be  acknowledged 
as  the  sweetest  and  most  pleasing  of  all  Hannah  M ore's 
poems : — 

"  Sweet  Sensibility  1  thou  secret  power 
Who  shed'st  thy  gifts  upon  the  natal  hour, 
Like  fairy  favours  ;  art  can  never  seize, 
Nor  affectation  catch  thy  power  to  please  : 
Thy  subtle  essence  still  eludes  the  chains 
Of  definition,  and  defeats  her  pains. 


362  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Sweet  Sensibility !  thou  keen  delight ! 
Unprompted  moral !  sudden  sense  of  right ! 
Perception  exquisite !  fair  virtue's  seed  ! 
Thou  quick  precursor  of  the  lib'ral  deed  ! 
Thou  hasty  conscience  !  reason's  blushing  niorn  ! 
Instinctive  kindness  ere  reflection's  born ! 
Prompt  sense  of  equity !  to  thee  belongs 
The  swift  redress  of  unexamin'd  wrongs ! 
Eager  to  serve,  the  cause  perhaps  untried, 
But  always  apt  to  choose  the  suff 'ring  side ! 
To  those  who  know  thee  not,  no  words  can  paint, 
And  those  who  know  thee,  know  all  words  are  faint ! 
*  *  *  * ' 

Since  trifles  make  the  sum  of  human  things, 
And  half  our  misery  from  our  foible  springs  ; 
Since  life's  best  joys  consist  in  peace  and  ease, 
And  though  but  few  can  serve,  yet  all  may  please  ; 
Oh  let  th'  ungentle  spirit  learn  from  hence, 
A  small  unkindness  is  a  great  offence. 
To  spread  large  bounties,  though  we  wish  in  vain, 
Yet  all  may  shun  the  guilt  of  giving  pain  : 
To  bless  mankind  with  tides  of  flowing  wealth, 
With  rank  to  grace  them,  or  to  crown  with  health, 
Our  little  lot  denies  ;  yet  lib'ral  still, 
Heaven  gives  its  counterpoise  to  every  ill ; 
Nor  let  us  murmur  at  our  stinted  powers, 
When  kindness,  love,  and  concord  may  bo  ours. 
The  gift  of  ministering  to  others'  ease, 
To  all  her  sons  impartial  she  decrees  ; 
The  gentle  offices  of  patient  love, 
Beyond  all  flattery,  and  all  price  above  ; 
The  mild  forbearance  at  a  brother's  fault, 
The  angry  word  suppress'd,  the  taunting  thought ; 
Subduing  and  subdued,  the  petty  strife, 
Which  clouds  the  colour  of  domestic  life ; 
The  sober  comfort,  all  the  peace  which  springs 
From  the  large  aggregate  of  little  things  ; 
On  these  small  cares  of  daughter,  wife,  or  friend, 
The  almost  sacred  joys  of  home  depend  : 
There,  Sensibility,  thou  best  mayst  reign, 
Home  is  thy  true  legitimate  domain. 
A  solitary  bliss  thou  ne'er  couldst  find, 
Thy  joys  with  those  thou  lov'st  are  intertwin'd  ; 
And  he  whose  helpful  tenderness  removes 
The  rankling  thorn  which  wounds  the  breast  he  loves, 
Smoothes  not  another's  rugged  path  alone, 
But  clears  th'  obstruction  which  impedes  his  own. 

The  hint  malevolent,  the  look  oblique, 
The  obvious  satire,  or  implied  dislike ; 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  363 

The  sneer  equivocal,  the  harsh  reply, 
And  all  the  cruel  language  of  the  eye ; 
The  artful  injury,  whose  venom'd  dart 
Scarce  wounds  the  hearing,  while  it  stabs  the  heart ; 
The  guarded  plirnse,  whose  meaning  kills,  yet  told, 
The  lisf  ner  wonders  how  you  thought  it  cold  ; 
Small  slights,  neglect,  unmix'd  perhaps  with  hate, 
Make  up  in  number  what  they  want  in  weight. 
These,  and  a  thousand  griefs  minute  as  these, 
Corrode  our  comfort  and  destroy  our  ease. 
As  feeling  tends  to  good  or  leans  to  ill, 
It  gives  fresh  force  to  vice  or  principle  ; 
'Tis  not  a  gift  peculiar  to  the  good, 
"Pis  often  but  the  virtue  of  the  blood  : 
And  what  would  seem  compassion's  moral  flow 
Is  but  a  circulation  swift  or  slow  : 
But  to  divert  it  to  its  proper  course, 
There  wisdom's  power  appears,  there  reason's  force  : 
If  ill  directed  it  pursue  the  wrong, 
It  adds  new  strength  to  what  before  was  strong  ; 
Breaks  out  in  wild  irregular  desires, 
Disorder'd  passions,  and  illicit  fires  ; 
Without  deforms  the  man,  depraves  within, 
And  makes  the  work  of  God  the  slave  of  sin. 
But  if  religion's  bias  rule  the  soul, 
Then  Sensibility  exalts  the  whole  ; 
Sheds  its  sweet  sunshine  on  the  moral  part, 
Nor  wastes  on  fancy  what  should  warm  the  heart. 
Cold  and  inert  the  mental  powers  would  lie, 
Without  this  quick'ning  spark  of  Deity. 
To  melt  the  rich  materials  from  the  mine, 
To  bid  the  mass  of  intellect  refine, 
To  bend  the  firm,  to  animate  the  cold, 
And  Heaven's  own  image  stamp  on  nature's  gold  ; 
To  give  immortal  mind  its  finest  tone, 
Oh,  Sensibility !  is  all  thy  own. 
This  is  th'  ethereal  flame  which  lights  and  warms, 
In  song  enchants  us,  and  in  action  charms. 
'Tis  this  that  makes  the  pensive  strains  of  Gray 
Win  to  the  open  heart  their  easy  way ; 
Makes  the  touch'd  spirit  glow  with  kindred  fire, 
When  sweet  Serena's  poet  wakes  the  lyre  : 
Makes  Portland's  face  its  brightest  rapture  wear, 
When  her  large  bounty  smoothes  the  bed  of  care  : 
'Tis  this  that  breathes  through  Se'vigne"s  fair  page, 
That  nameless  grace  which  soothes  a  second  age ; 
'Tis  this,  whose  charms  the  soul  resistless  seize, 
And  give  Boscaweu  half  her  power  to  please." 


364         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Justly  to  appreciate  the  value  of  her  writings  to  her 
contemporaries,  it  is  necessary  to  refer  to  the  history  of 
the  times  in  which  they  were  first  published.  Her  com- 
prehensive and  exact  discernment  of  the  peculiar  moral 
evils  incident  to  her  then  present  generation,  and  her 
adroit  adaptation  of  appropriate  counteractives,  deserve 
all  the  admiration,  all  the  praise,  all  the  grateful  affection 
ever  offered  in  tribute  to  her  genius  and  her  goodness. 

The  different  conditions  of  society  at  different  epochs 
grow  out  of  intermediate  comminglings  of  means  naturally 
tending,  or  providentially  overruled,  to  produce  those 
changes,  and  many  improvements  in  the  personal,  domestic, 
and  social  practices,  habitudes,  and  opinions  of  English- 
women may  undoubtedly,  and  without  fear  of  mistake,  be 
attributed  to  the  influence  of  Hannah  More ;  in  those 
social  practices,  habitudes,  and  opinions,  comprehending 
all  that  relates  to  and  lies  between  the  minute  details  of 
cottage  cookery  and  the  deportment  of  regal  personages. 
She  wrote  more  books,  which  passed  through  more  fre- 
quent editions,  and  were  printed  in  more  numerous  lan- 
guages, and  read  by  greater  multitudes  of  persons,  than 
any  other  authoress  upon  record.  All  of  them  had  more 
or  less  a  beneficial  tendency,  and  never  did  personal 
example  more  cogently  enforce  preceptive  exhortation, 
than  in  the  instance  of  this  admirable  woman. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OP  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  POETESSES. 
A.D.  1833— OCTOBER. 
Mary-Jane  Jewsbury. 


But  at  my  back  I  always  hear 

Time's  winged  chariot  hurrying  near  ; 

And  yonder  all  before  us  lie 

Deserts  of  vast  eternity."— ANDREW  MARVEL. 


MARY-JANE  JEWSBURY. 

MR.  THOMAS  JEWSBURY,  a  cotton-spinner  and  lacemaker 
who  had  mills  and  a  residence  at  Measham,  five  miles  from 
Ashby-de-la-Zouche,  married,  in  the  year  1799,  Miss  Maria 
Smith,  a  handsome,  amiable,  and  clever  woman ;  and  their 
eldest  child,  Mary-Jane  Jewsbury,  was  born  on  the  23rd 
of  October,  1800.  Her  earliest  years  were  spent  in  that 
abundance  of  corporeal  comforts  to  which  the  profits  of 
manufacturing  prosperity  are  commonly  applied.  She  was 
sent  to  a  school  kept  by  a  Miss  Adams,  at  Shenston,  and 
there  passed  through  the  routine  of  ordinary  female  in- 
struction. Her  love  of  reading,  although  early  manifested, 
found  neither  encouragement  nor  guidance,  and  took  the 
form  rather  of  desultory  enjoyment  than  that  of  a  con- 
sistent pursuit  of  knowledge.  Dutiful  attachment  to  her 
parents,  and  protecting  affection  for  her  brothers  and  sister, 
counterbalanced  in  some  measure  the  isolating  conscious- 


366  LITEBAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

ness  of  intellectual  superiority,  softened  the  rigour  of  her 
resolute  will,  and  restrained  the  impulsive  eagerness  of 
her  temperament.  Earnest  sincerity,  sound  practical  sense, 
and  a  vivid  imagination,  soon  won  the  tinappreciating  and 
instinctive  homage  of  her  family. 

The  history  of  her  mind  in  childhood  is  left  chiefly  to 
conjecture :  its  most  peculiar  points  she  often  alluded  to 
in  after  life ;  its  general  course  doubtless  resembled  that 
of  other  aspirants  who  have  shaped  their  own  way  to  fame. 
Slight  incentives  suffice  in  childhood  to  educe  and  to 
direct  the  flow  of  mind.  Praise  casually  received  for 
knowing,  or  for  wishing  to  know,  seeing  a  name  upon  a 
title-page,  admiration  of  the  terse  form  in  which  some 
recognized  truth  is  conveyed  by  prose  or  verse,  concurring 
with  the  inherent  self-suspicion  of  possessing  latent  power, 
may  cause  emulative  attempts  at  clothing  thoughts  in  apt 
words — may  evoke  the  wish  to  influence  opinions  and  to 
win  fame.  Then  follow  the  examination  and  selection  of 
words  to  convey  spontaneous  ideas,  or  to  adorn  matter-of- 
fact  narrations ;  the  test  by  ear  and  eye  of  those  best  fitted 
for  imitating  metres  and  rhymes  which  haunt  the  memory 
with  harmonious  sounds ;  these  studious  researches  tend- 
ing to  enlarge  the  tyro's  acquaintance  with  the  copious- 
ness of  the  language,  and  to  enrich  the  intellect  with  the 
various  forms,  colourings,  tintings,  and  inflexions  of  verbal 
signification ;  increasing  thereby  the  capacity  for  enjoying 
the  works  of  the  ablest  authors,  and  cultivating  critical 
taste  simultaneously  with  practical  improvement  of  style. 

The  simple  name  of  a  nursery-book,  '  Aunt  Mary's 
Tales  for  her  Nieces,'  or  some  other,  has,  ere  now,  taught 
a  thoughtful  child  to  infer, — Then  a  woman  could  write 
and  publish  what  she  had  seen  and  known ;  and  why 
should  not  I,  when  I  grow  up,  do  the  like  ?  I  should  not 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  367 

been  commended  if  I  had  not  attended,  observed, 
remembered  in  one  particular  instance,  nor  if  I  had 
fail od  to  direct  my  curiosity  and  my  inquiries  aright  in 
another,  and  thus  I  am  encouraged  to  attend,  to  observe, 
and  to  investigate.  In  such,  and  in  similar  trifles  have 
lain  the  tiny  seeds,  which  germinating  vigorously,  and 
cultivated  long  and  with  sedulous  toil,  have  often,  ere  now, 
produced  goodly  plants,  pleasant  flowers,  and  useful  fruits. 
By  some  such  means,  no  doubt,  the  genius  of  Mary-Jane 
Jewsbury  was  directed  in  childhood  towards  literary  emi- 
nence ;  and,  against  a  thousand  formidable  forms  of  dis- 
couragement, she  struggled  onward  -to  attain  it.  Im- 
pressed with  the  sense,  though  probably  then  unacquainted 
with  the  words  of  Daniel  in  his  *  Musophilus,' — 

"  Tliis  is  the  thing  that  I  was  born  to  do, 
This  is  my  scene  ;  this  part  I  must  fulfil," 

— her  life  exemplified  them. 

It  is  certain  that  her  sympathy  with  family  cares,  and 
JUT  industrious  participation  in  household  occupations, 
lightened  the  troubles  of  her  parents  when  ill  success  in 
business  embarrassed  their  circumstances,  and  obliged  her 
father  to  give  up  his  cotton-mills  at  Measham,  and  to 
remove  with  his  wife  and  children  to  Manchester.  Her 
letters  to  her  mother,  written  in  1819,  during  a  temporary 
absence  on  a  visit  to  some  relations,  are  fluent  and  easy, 
full  of  good  sense  and  right  feeling,  indicating  superior 
ability,  keenness  of  observation,  and  a  clever  application 
of  a  large  fund  of  miscellaneous  information.  The  death 
of  Mrs.  Jewsburyv  her  mother,  took  place  at  a  later  period 
of  the  same  year,  and  the  care  of  the  orphan  family,  con- 
sisting of  her  younger  sister,  and  of  five  brothers,  one  of 
them  being  an  infant  of  a  month  old,  devolved  entirely 
upon  Mary-Jane  Jewsbury. 


368  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

To  the  consolation  of  her  father,  who  was  a  man  of 
strong  family  affections,  and  to  all  the  duties  of  this 
trying  exigency,  she  devoted  herself  at  once,  and  with  un- 
remitting assiduity,  sustained  the  burden  during  a  period 
of  thirteen  years.  It  is  not  asserted  that  she  ever  attained 
to  excellence  as  a  systematic  or  practical  domestic  manager, 
but  she  successfully  endeavoured  to  promote  the  comfort 
of  her  only  surviving  parent,  and  consistently  laboured,  by 
means  carefully  selected,  to  train  up  her  brothers  and 
sister  for  usefulness  and  permanent  happiness. 

In  the  year  1821,  she  commenced  a  regular  course  of 
reading,  exercising  herself  at  the  same  time  in  the  composi- 
tion of  prose  and  verse.  It  appears  to  have  been  about  this 
period  that  she  addressed  a  letter  to  Wordsworth,  whose 
poetry  she  admired,  but  to  whom  she  was  utterly  unknown. 
Its  purport  was  to  ask  of  him  that  question  so  often  asked 
by  obscure  aspirants  of  poets  with  whose  sentiments  they 
have  sympathised,  in  the  eager  hope  that  those  poets  will 
sympathise  with  them,  and,  in  spite  of  all  domestic  and 
social  impediments,  enable  them  to  emerge  from  obscurity 
by  revealing  the  precious  secret,  bestowing  the  sacred 
talisman,  unravelling  the  tangled  clue  of  literary  success. 
In  her  case  this  application  led  to  the  establishment  of 
epistolary  correspondence,  to  personal  and  family  inter- 
course, and  to  steady  friendship,  without  any  direct  benefit 
to  her  as  an  authoress,  but  with  those  results  of  mental 
improvement  which  were  far  more  conducive  to  her  per- 
manent good. 

Mr.  Aston,  the  editor  of  l  The  Manchester  Gazette,' 
being  acquainted  with  her  father,  had  the  honour  of  first 
printing  and  publishing  a  little  poem  of  hers ;  and  being 
impressed  with  a  high  opinion  of  her  talents,  he  in- 
troduced her  to  Mr.  Alaric- Alexander  Watts,  who,  from 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  369 

flic  latter  part  of  the  year  1822,  edited  <  The  Leeds 
Intelligencer/  and  three  years  afterwards  resigned  that 
paper,  removed  his  residence  to  Manchester,  and  be- 
came the  editor  of  *  The  Manchester  Courier,'  and  of  an 
annual  volume,  called  *  The  Literary  Souvenir/  to  which 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Southey,  Montgomery,  and  Mary- 
Jane  Jewsbury,  were  contributors.  Mr.  Watts,  who 
married  Zillah  Wiffen,  the  sister  of  Jeremiah-Holme 
Wiffen,  the  historian  of  the  House  of  Russell,  was  less 
than  two  years  older  than  Miss  Jewsbury,  and  with  the 
generous  zeal  of  youth  and  of  a  noble  .heart,  he  aided  her 
in  the  work  of  mental  culture,  gave  publicity  to  her  occa- 
sional poems,  urged  the  composition  of  her  first  book, 
'  Phantasmagoria,'  and  found  a  publisher  for  it. 

In  1825  Mr.  Watts  gave  up  the  local  newspaper.  In 
1828  and  1829  he  edited  an  annual,  called  <  The  Poetical 
Album,  or  Eegister  of  Modern  Fugitive  Poetry,'  to  which, 
and  to  several  other  volumes  of  a  similar  kind,  Miss  Jews- 
bury  became  a  distinguished  contributor.  '  The  Literary 
Magnet/  '  The  Literary  Souvenir/  and  *  The  Amulet,'  were 
likewise  indebted  for  much  of  their  popularity  to  her  pen. 

At  a  later  period  she  also  wrote  for  '  The  Athenaeum/ 
and  many  of  the  best  pieces  which  she  ever  composed 
still  remain  entombed,  though  embalmed,  in  the  thick 
quartos  of  that  work. 

Mrs.  Owen  of  Rhyllon,  in  her  Memoir  of  her  sister,  Mrs. 
Hemans,  thus  relates  the  circumstances  of  Miss  Jewsbury 's 
first  sojourn  in  Wales : — "  She  had  long  admired  the 
writings  of  Mrs.  Hemans  with  all  the  enthusiasm  which 
characterised  her  temperament ;  and  having  been  for  some 
time  in  correspondence  with  her,  she  eagerly  sought  for  an 
opportunity  of  knowing  her  more  nearly,  and,  with  this 
view,  determined  upon  passing  a  part  of  the  summer  and 

2  B 


370  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

autumn  of  1828  in  the  neighbourhood  of  St.  Asaph.     No 
better  accommodation  could  be  found  for  her  than  a  very 
small  dwelling,  called  Primrose  Cottage,  a  corruption  of 
its  original  appellation  of  Pumrhos — the  Five  Commons. 
The  place  in  itself  was  as  little  attractive  as  a  cottage 
in  Wales  could  well  be,  and  its  closeness  to  the  road  took 
away  even   from  its  rurality;    but  it  possessed   the  ad- 
vantage of  being  not  more  than  half  a  mile  from  Ehyllon, 
and  it  had  its  little  garden  and  its  roses,  and  its  green 
turf  and  pure  air;   and  these  to  an  inhabitant  of  Man- 
chester, which  Miss  Jewsbury  then  was,  were  things  of 
health  and  enjoyment.     Thither  then  she  repaired  with 
the  young  sister  and  brothers,  to  whom  she  had  long  and 
well  performed  the  duties  of  a  mother ;  and  there  Mrs. 
Hemans  found  her  established  on  her  own  return  from 
Wavertree  at  the  end  of  July.     It  may  well  be  conceived 
how  soon  a  feeling  of  warm  interest  and  thorough  under- 
standing sprang  up  between  two  minds  so  rarely  gifted, 
and  both  so  intent  upon  consecrating  their  gifts  to  the 
highest  and  holiest  purposes.     Yet  it  was  scarcely  possible 
to  imagine  two  individual  natures  more  strikingly  con- 
trasted ;  the  one  so  intensely  feminine,  so  susceptible  and 
imaginative,  so  devoted  to  the  tender  and  the  beautiful ; 
the  other  endowed  with  masculine  energies,  with  a  spirit 
that  seemed  born  for  ascendancy,  with  strong  powers  of 
reasoning,  fathomless  profundity  of  thought,  and  feelings 
like  those  of  her  own  Julia,  '  flashing  forth  at  intervals 
with   sudden   and  Yesuvian   splendour,   making  the   be- 
holder aware  of  depths  beyond  his  vision.'     With  all  this 
she  possessed  warm   and  generous  affections,  a  peculiar 
faculty  for  identifying  herself  with  the  tastes  and  predi- 
lections of  those  she  loved ;  and  in  conversation,  when  em- 
bodying the  conceptions  of  her  own  '  ever  salient  mind,' 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         87 J 

a  singular  talent  for  eliciting  thoughts  from  others,  which 
reminded  one  of  the  magic  properties  of  the  divining  rod. 
From  early  years  she  had  had  to  contend  with  that  pre- 
rarious  and  suffering  state  of  health  so  often  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  restless  ardent  spirit,  which 

"  O'er  informs  its  tenement  of  clay ;" 

she  came  into  Wales,  indeed,  completely  as  an  invalid, 
but  was  soon  sufficiently  recruited  to  enter  with  full 
enjoyment  into  all  the  novelties  around  her,  to  pass  long 
mornings  in  the  dingle,  to  take  distant  rides  on  her  donkey, 
surrounded  by  a  troop  of  juvenile  knights-errant,  and  to 
hold  levees  in  the  tent  she  had  contrived  as  a  temporary 
addition  to  her  tiny  dwelling,  whose  wicket-gate  can  now 
never  be  passed  by  those  still  left  to  remember  the  converse 
of  those  bright  hours  without  a  gush  of  mournful  recollec- 
tions. Many  of  the  poems  in  her  'Lays  of  Leisure  Hours/ 
which  she  dedicated  to  Mrs.  Hemans,  *  in  remembrance  of 
the  summer  passed  in  her  society/  were  written  in  this 
little  cottage.  Some  of  them  were  immediately  addressed 
to  her,  particularly  that  '  To  an  Absent  One/  and  the  first 
of  the  series  of  ' Poetical  Portraits'  in  the  same  volume 
was  meant  to  describe  her.  The  picture  of  Egeria,  in 
*  The  Three  Histories/  written  by  Miss  Jewsbury  some 
time  afterwards,  was  avowedly  taken  from  the  same 
original,  and,  allowing  for  a  certain  degree  of  idealization, 
is  drawn  with  no  less  truth  than  delicacy."  * 

Miss  Jewsbury  has  herself  acknowledged  the  softening 
effect  produced  upon  her  own  character  by  contact  with  that 
of  Mrs.  Hemans ;  and  that  to  her  example  she  owed  the 
habit  of  looking  for  beautiful  and  pleasant  things,  and  dis- 
cerning them  even  among  the  harshest  realities  of  life. 

*  'Memoir,' p.  141-3. 

2B2 


372  LITERAKY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  writer  of  this  Essay  is  indebted  to  Miss  Geraldirie- 
Ensor  Jewsbury  and  to  Mr.  Francis  Jewsbury,  for  the 
perusal  of  a  collection  of  their  sister's  private  letters, 
and  of  the  manuscript  Journal  of  her  Voyage  and  Eesi- 
dence  in  India.  All  her  letters,  however  hasty  and 
unstudied,  bear  marks  of  a  fine  mind  under  the  steady 
and  habitual  control  of  the  highest  principles.  Her  pen 
ennobles  all  it  touches,  and  gives  interest  even  to  trivial 
details.  Those  letters  throw  a  clear  light  upon  one  im- 
portant feature  of  her  character — the  strength  and  con- 
stancy of  its  attachment — showing  her  father,  her  sister, 
her  brothers,  and  her  friends,  to  have  been  continually 
present  to  her  thoughts,  and  that  her  best  affections  and 
most  sedulous  cares  ever  hovered  protectingly  over  all  the 
members  of  the  paternal  household.  Her  care  for  her 
young  sister,  throughout  a  long  series  of  years,  extended 
even  to  the  most  minute  particulars  of  dress  which  could 
tend  to  personal  comfort  or  respectability  of  appearance  ; 
to  the  gratification  of  her  tastes  and  wishes  by  gifts,  permis- 
sions to  participate  in  innocent  pleasures,  kind  words,  and 
the  communication  of  agreeable  information;  to  placing 
her  under  the  instruction  of  persons  competent  to  conduct 
her  education  in  a  manner  suited  to  develop  her  talents  ; 
to  the  communication  of  feelings  of  interest  and  attach- 
ment so  strong  and  so  constant  as  to  work  upon  her 
sympathy  and  awaken  reciprocal  regard ;  to  the  adminis- 
tration of  reproof,  suited  with  discriminating  sagacity,  to 
the  faults  which  she  discerned,  and  desired  to  correct; 
and  to  the  inculcation  of  precepts  full  of  real  wisdom,  and 
adapted  to  the  modification  of  natural  tendencies,  to  the 
formation  of  a  fine  womanly  character,  and  to  the  conse- 
cration of  heart,  soul,  and  conduct,  to  life's  highest  proba- 
tionary end. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  373 

A  woman  devoting  herself  thus  assiduously  to  domestic 
ami  family  duties,  while  applying  her  mind  to  study,  and 
simultaneously  pursuing  a  course  of  literary  compositions, 
while  forming  friendships  with  the  principal  authors  and 
authoresses  of  the  day,  and  finding  the  confirmation  of 
IUT  secret  aspirations  in  their  approval  and  applause,  must 
have  possessed  not  only  an  extraordinary  mind,  but  also  an 
enlarged  and  noble  heart. 

Dreading,  perhaps,  to  be  instrumental  in  communicating 
doubt,  or  in  eliciting  presumptuous  inquiry,  her  advice  on 
theological  and  religious  subjects  tended  rather  towards 
dogmatism.  She  had  painfully  acquired  an  assured  belief 
in  the  vital  doctrines  of  Christianity,  and  she  enforced 
their  reception  upon  other  persons  as  a  bounden  duty, 
with  too  little  of  that  persuasive  appeal  to  the  under- 
standing, feelings,  and  experience,  of  which  the  personal 
teaching  of  Our  Lord  and  of  his  Apostles  affords  so  many 
striking  and  affecting  instances. 

Among  her  friends  she  numbered  Mrs.  Hofland,  Mrs. 
Henry  Coleridge,  the  Koscoes,  the  Dilkes,  the  S.  C.  Halls, 
the  Chorleys,  De  Quincy,  and  many  other  distinguished 
members  of  the  world  of  letters.  Her  society  was  much 
courted ;  and  in  London,  as  well  as  among  her  numerous 
acquaintance  in  various  parts  of  England,  her  brilliant 
conversation  confirmed  and  increased  the  reputation  won 
by  her  writings. 

Having,  in  the  year  1831,  consented  to  become  the  wife 
of  the  Kev.  William  K.  Fletcher,  one  of  the  chaplains  of  the 
Hon.  East  India  Company,  she  subsequently  accepted  the 
invitation  of  her  admiring  friend,  Mrs.  Hughes,  the  sister  of 
Mrs.  Hemans,  and  then  the  wife  of  the  rector  of  Penegoes, 
Montgomery  shire ;  and  assembling  her  family  party  there  in 
the  July  of  the  following  year,  was  married  to  Mr.  Fletcher 


374  LITEEABY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

in  the  church  of  that  parish,  by  her  hospitable  host,  on  the 
1st  of  August,  1832.  Having  already  commenced  her  pre- 
parations to  accompany  Mr.  Fletcher  to  India,  she  took  a 
final  farewell  of  her  family,  full  of  projects  for  their  comfort, 
and  plans  of  future  usefulness :  and  made  the  wedding  tour 
through  some  of  the  wildest  solitudes  of  the  Principality, 
a  part  of  the  last  long  journey  which  she  ever  travelled 
upon  British  ground. 

In  London,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fletcher  were  received  by 
hospitable  and  zealous  friends.  They  embarked  from 
Gravesend  on  board  "  The  Victory,"  East  Indiarnan,  com- 
manded by  Captain  Christopher  Biden ;  and  the  first  entry 
in  the  journal  of  her  voyage  bears  the  date  of  September 
20,  1832.  This  record  is  deeply  interesting  as  a  manifes- 
tation of  character.  Without  deriving  materials  from  that 
tempting  source,  the  acts  and  words  of  her  fellow-passengers, 
without  indulging  an  artistic  propensity  to  sketch  the  indi- 
viduals with  whom  secluded  proximity  made  her  thoroughly 
acquainted  ;  in  short,  without  scandal  and  without  gossip, 
winning  the  respect  of  her  readers  by  abstaining  from  the 
readiest  topics  of  remark,  Mrs.  Fletcher  enlivens  the  mo- 
notony of  routine  by  directing  attention  to  every  striking 
change  of  weather  and  variety  of  appearance  in  the  world 
of  waters ;  its  colours,  its  tints,  its  lights  and  shades,  its 
dark  and  its  luminous,  its  morning,  afternoon,  evening,  and 
midnight  aspects.  Crabbe  himself  has  not  more  accurately 
noted  the  ocean's  wonderful  varieties;  nor  Byron  more 
deeply  felt  its  awful  greatness.  Then  she  pictures  forth 
the  glory  of  the  moon  and  stars,  the  forms,  tinctures, 
and  sublime  movements  of  the  clouds,  in  masses,  airy 
vapours,  silvery  haze,  and  obscuring  fog ;  the  inhabitants 
of  the  great  deep,  and  the  winged  watchers  attendant  on 
its  billows.  Her  own  lively  interest  glows  in  her  words, 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  375 

and  communicates  the  eagerness  with  which  the  sharks 
were  discerned  from  the  ship;  and  the  albatrosses,  shot  by 
marine  sportsmen,  brought  in  the  boat,  and  examined  on 
the  deck  by  the  poetical  wife  and  the  scientific  husband. 
Again,  the  vivid  contrasts  occasionally  drawn  between 
scenes  peculiar  to  life  on  shore  and  life  at  sea,  the  sort  of 
interlude  presented  between  the  part  of  existence  done  and 
acted  out  in  Europe,  and  the  part  yet  to  be  entered  upon 
and  fulfilled  in  Asia  ;  the  reflections  and  expectations,  the 
meditative  musings,  acute  commentaries-,  and  natural  over- 
flowings of  rich  thought  and  ardent  feeling  from  the 
changeful  moods  of  a  true  poetess,  written  avowedly  for 
the  perusal  of  the  relations  whom  she  loved  best,  and  the 
friends  whom  she  honoured  most — among  the  latter  being 
a  Wordsworth  and  a  Hemans — convey  altogether  a  very 
engaging  and  attaching  representation  of  a  guileless  and 
ardent  woman  of  genius,  disciplining  herself  incessantly 
"  To  fix  the  lifted  eye  on  things  sublime." 

Her  'Verses  composed  during  a  very  discomposing 
breeze,'  a  comic  strain;  and  'The  Burden  of  the  Sea/  a 
didactic  one,  are  not  among  her  best  effusions ;  though 
there  is  in  the  latter  a  very  fine  half  stanza : — 

"  The  billows  that  engulph  a  fleet, 
And  desolate  a  thousand  homes, 
The  sea-bird  skims  with  careless  feet, 
The  nautilus  securely  roams ! " 

The  voyagers  spent  the  Christmas  week  of  the  year 
1832,  on  shore,  at  Port  Louis,  in  the  island  of  Ceylon,  and 
put  to  sea  again  on  the  29th  of  December. 

Many  passages  of  her  journal  are  very  eloquent.  Under 
the  date  of  January  9,  1833,  she  writes :  "  We  have  had 
two  sunsets  that  not  merely  baffle  description,  but  render 
Turner  and  Martin's  gorgeousuess  quaint  and  tame.  Fancy 
a  city  full  of  majestic  buildings  on  fire ;  fancy  a  crowd  of 


370  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

violet  coloured  mountains  hemming  in  the  flames,  the  sky 
beyond  them  dusky  and  sullen,  looking  on,  as  it  were. 
Fancy  all  this,  and  you  have  some  idea  of  a  last  evening's 
sunset.  The  other  occurred  a  few  evenings  before,  and 
whilst  less  gorgeous,  was  more  singular;  I  should  rather 
say  more  supernatural.  The  flame  colour  of  the  clouds  in 
the  west  was  mixed  and  tinctured  with  a  deep,  exquisite 
rose,  which  was  reflected  again  upon  the  opposite  clouds 
surrounding  the  moon.  They,  however,  owing  to  her  own 
peculiar  light,  were  dimmer — the  hue  of  a  dying  fire,  edged 
and  flecked  with  a  faint  silvery  green  and  white,  the  sea 
beneath  might  have  been  strewn  with  emeralds.  One 
mass  of  attendant  cloud  happened  to  be  of  a  peculiarly 
towering  form,  and  to  stand  out  prominently  from  the 
horizon.  I  could  liken  it  to  nothing  but  the  pillar  of  fire 
that  nightly  rose  over  the  Jewish  wanderers  in  the  desert. 
Gradually,  as  the  light  from  the  sun  decreased,  and  that  of 
the  moon  strengthened,  the  flame  colour  on  the  clouds  round 
the  latter  faded,  the  green  and  the  grey  became  snow 
white ;  till  at  length  the  planet  of  the  night,  dissipating 
every  evil  between  herself  and  our  eyes,  shone  solitary  in 
the  heavens,  with  an  effulgence  that  to  more  than  myself 
proved  exhausting.  I  ought  to  mention  that  both  days 
our  weather  had  been  broken  by  squalls,  consequently 
both  were  disturbed  sunsets;  disturbed,  however,  into 
increased  magnificence  and  beauty.  By-the-way,  I  have 
never  mentioned  the  appearance  of  a  squall ;  one  is  coming' 
now,  with  rain:  there  is  a  line  of  mist  along  the  horizon 
which  seems  to  walk  the  waters,  nearing  the  ship  every 
moment.  When  severe  and  much  extended,  the  sea  pre- 
sents the  appearance  of  a  field  of  ripe  barley  bowing  before 
the  wind ;  there  is  the  same  whiteness,  the  same  undulation 
of  surface." 

On  the  2nd  of  March,  1833,  she  landed  at  Bombay,  and 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  377 

hospitably  received  at  the  house  of  the  Archdeacon. 
Proceeding  to  Hurnee  with  Mr.  Fletcher,  they  remained 
there  until  the  end  of  May,  when  Mr.  Fletcher  received 
orders  to  proceed  to  Sholapoor,  which  they  reached  on  the 
17th  of  June.  Entering  with  animated  expectation  upon 
every  new  scene,  keenly  observing  every  point  of  contrast 
between  the  Asiatic  and  European  aspects  of  nature,  art, 
and  social  life,  and  every  peculiarity  of  local  manners  and 
habits ;  and  more  especially  studying  the  character  of  the 
people  in  connection  with  their  idolatrous  worship,  she 
carefully  prepared  herself  for  usefulness  among  them. 
Drought  prevailed  at  that  period  in  and  around  Sholapoor ; 
it  produced  a  famine ;  and  Mr.  Fletcher's  principal  em- 
ployment on  his  arrival  was  to  mitigate  the  sufferings  of 
the  emaciated  and  perishing  population.  Accompanying 
him  one  day  in  this  mission  of  mercy,  they  found  a  native 
man  lying  dead  upon  the  steps  of  an  idol  temple,  having 
his  little  girl  clasped  in  his  arms.  Finding  that  the  child 
was  alive,  Mrs.  Fletcher  took  it  home  with  her,  provided 
for  its  wants,  and  placed  it  finally  under  proper  care.  The 
anxiety  and  over  exertion  of  Mr.  Fletcher  brought  on  a 
dangerous  illness,  and  for  seven  weeks  his  excellent  wife 
nursed  him  assiduously.  On  his  recovery,  obtaining  a 
medical  certificate  that  his  health  would  not  bear  that 
climate,  they  set  out  on  the  26th  of  September,  on  their 
return  to  Hurnee. 

The  last  entry  she  ever  made  in  her  journal  was  dated 
"Babelgaum,  September  26,  1833."  A  few  days  after- 
wards, having  proceeded  as  far  as  Poonah,  she  was  seized 
with  cholera,  sank  calmly  under  it,  and  died  there  on  the 
4th  of  October.  Her  remains  were  interred  in  the  ceme- 
tery at  Pooiiah. 

It  was  a  saying  among  the  ancient  Saxon  <poets,  whun 


378  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

one  of  their  heroes  died  in  peace,  that  "  He  went  on  his 
way."  This  expressive  phrase  suggesting,  that  having 
accomplished  one  stage  of  life's  journey,  the  traveller 
through  time  had  now  entered  upon  another;  like  the 
sparrow  flying  into  and  along  the  bright  banqueting- 
hall  of  King  Edwin  and  out  again  into  darkness.  A 
mind  of  such  great  promise  rendered  frustrate,  of  such 
undoubted  power  scarce  unfolded,  indicates  more  strikingly 
than  a  thousand  homilies,  that  the  visible  world  is  but  the 
vestibule  of  human  existence. 

Her  mind  had  great  scope,  and  possessed  both  vigorous 
strength  and  analytic  delicacy.  It  tended  chiefly  towards 
metaphysics  and  a  poetic  form  of  moral  philosophy. 

Of  her,  Lsetitia-Elizabeth  Landon  said : — "  I  never  met 
with  any  woman  who  possessed  her  powers  of  conversation. 
If  her  language  had  a  fault,  it  was  its  extreme  perfection. 
It  was  like  reading  an  eloquent  book,  full  of  thought  and 
poetry.  She  died  too  soon;  and  what  noble  aspirings, 
what  generous  enthusiasm,  what  kindly  emotions,  went 
down  to  the  grave  with  her  unfulfilled  destiny !  There  is 
no  word  that  will  so  thoroughly  describe  her  as  high-minded, 
she  was  such  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  There  was  no 
envy,  no  bitterness  about  her;  and  it  must  be  a  lofty 
nature  that  delights  in  admiration."*  This  is  true  and 
honest  praise,  though  the  last  proposition  is  untenable. 

Soon  after  having  received  the  tidings  of  her  friend's 
death,  Mrs.  Hemans  thus  wrote  of  her: — "How  much 
deeper  power  seemed  to  lie  coiled  up,  as  it  were,  in  the 
recesses  of  her  mind  than  was  ever  manifested  to  the 
world  in  her  writings !  Strange  and  sad  does  it  seem  that 
only  the  broken  music  of  such  a  spirit  should  have  been 

*  Laman  Blanchard's  '  Life  and  Literary  Remains  of  L.  E.  L.,'  vol.  i., 
p.  261,  note. 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

given  to  the  earth — the  full  and  finished  harmony  never 
drawn  forth.  Yet  I  would  rather,  a  thousand  times,  she 
should  have  perished  thus  in  the  path  of  her  chosen  duties, 
than  have  seen  her  become  the  merely  brilliant  creature 
of  London  literary  life,  at  once  the  queen  and  slave  of 
some  heartless  coterie,  living  upon  those  poor  succes  de 
societe  which  I  think  utterly  ruinous  to  all  that  is  lofty, 
and  holy,  and  delicate,  in  the  nature  of  a  highly-endowed 
woman.  I  put  on  mourning  for  her  with  a  deep  feeling  of 
sadness.  I  never  expected  to  meet  her  again  in  this  life  ; 
but  there  was  a  strong  chain  of  interest  between  us,  that 
spell  of  mind  on  mind,  which  once  formed  can  never  be 
broken.  I  felt,  too,  that  my  whole  nature  was  understood 
and  appreciated  by  her ;  and  this  is  a  sort  of  happiness 
which  I  consider  the  most  rare  in  all  earthly  affection." 

Wordsworth  says : — "  Her  enthusiasm  was  ardent,  her 
piety  steadfast ;  and  her  great  talents  would  have  enabled 
her  to  be  eminently  useful  in  the  path  to  which  she  had 
been  called.  The  opinion  she  entertained  of  her  own  per- 
formances, given  to  the  world  under  her  maiden  name, 
was  modest  and  humble  ;  indeed  far  below  her  merits,  as  is 
often  the  case  with  those  who  are  making  trial  of  their 
powers  to  discover  what  they  are  fit  for.  In  one  quality — 
quickness  in  the  motions  of  her  mind — she  was,  in  the 
author's  estimation,  unrivalled."  * 

None  but  vain  and  self-conceited  persons  dislike  the 
egotism  of  genius.  To  kindred  minds  it  is  a  welcome 
revelation  which  excites  intense  sympathy. 

The  following  letter,  derived  from  'The  Athenaeum/ 
1834,  page  473 ;  and  from  the  '  Memoir  of  Mrs.  Hemans 
by  her  Sister,'  forms  an  autobiographical  record  of  great 
value.  It  was  addressed  to  Mrs.  Hemans. 

*  Wordsworth's  Poetical  Works,  vol.  v.,  iiote  to  *  Liberty.' 


380  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

"  The  passion  for  literary  distinction  consumed  me  from 
nine  years  old.  I  had  no  advantages — great  obstacles — and 
now  (1832)  when  from  disgust  I  cannot  write  a  line  to 
please  myself,  I  look  back  with  regret  to  the  days  when 
facility  and  audacity  went  hand  in  hand ;  I  wish  in  vain 
for  the  simplicity  which  neither  dreaded  criticism  nor  knew 
fear.  Intense  labour  has,  in  some  measure,  supplied  the 
deficiency  of  early  idleness  and  common-place  instruction. 
Intercourse  with  those,  who  were  once  distant  and  bright 
as  the  stars,  has  become  a  thing  of  course.  I  have  not 
been  unsuccessful  in  my  own  career ;  but  the  period  of 
timidity  and  sadness  is  now  come,  and  with  my  foot  upon 
the  threshold  of  a  new  life  and  a  new  world 

" '  I  would  lie  down  like  a  tired  child, 
And  weep  away  this  life  of  woe.' 

I  can  bear  blame,  if  seriously  given,  and  accompanied  by 
that  general  justice  which  I  feel  due  to  me  ;  banter  is  that 
which  I  cannot  bear,  and  the  prevalence  of  which  in  passing 
criticism,  and  the  dread  of  which  in  my  own  person,  greatly 
contributes  to  my  determination  of  letting  many  years 
elapse  before  I  write  another  book. 

"Unfortunately,  I  was  twenty-one  before  I  became  a 
reader,  and  I  became  a  writer  almost  as  soon.  It  is  the 
ruin  of  all  the  young  talent  of  the  day  that  reading  and 
writing  are  simultaneous.  We  do  not  educate  ourselves 
for  literary  enterprise.  Some  never  awake  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  better  things  neglected ;  and  if  one  like 
myself  is  at  last  seized  upon  by  a  blended  passion  for 
knowledge  and  for  truth,  he  has  probably  committed  him- 
self by  a  series  of  jejune  efforts — the  standard  of  inferiority 
is  erected,  and  the  curse  of  mere  cleverness  clings  to  his 
name. 

"I  would  gladly  burn  almost  everything  I  ever  wrote, 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  381 

if  so  be  that  I  might  start  now  with  a  mind  that  has  seen* 
read,  thought,  and  suffered,  somewhat  at  least  approaching 
to  a  preparation.  Alas!  alas!  we  all  sacrifice  the  palm- 
tree  to  obtain  the*  temporary  draught  of  wine !  We  slay 
tlu»  camel  that  would  bear  us  through  the  desert,  because 
we  will  not  endure  a  momentary  thirst. 

"  I  have  done  nothing  to  live,  and  what  I  have  yet  done 
must  pass  away  with  a  thousand  other  blossoms,  the  growth, 
the  beauty,  and  oblivion  of  a  day.  The  powers  which  I 
feel,  and  of  which  I  have  given  promise*  may  mature,  may 
stamp  themselves  in  act ;  but  the  spirit  of  despondency  is 
strong  upon  the  future  exile,  and  I  fear  they  never  will. 
In  the  language  of  Keats — 

"  '  I  feel  the  long  grass  growing  o'er  my  heart.' 

"  My  *  Three  Histories '  has  most  of  myself  in  them,  but 
they  are  fragmentary.  Public  report  has  fastened  the 
Julia  upon  me.  The  childhood,  the  opening  years,  and 
many  of  the  after  opinions  are  correct;  but  all  else  is 
fabulous. 

"In  the  best  of  everything  I  have  done  you  will  find 
one  leading  idea — Death;  all  thoughts,  all  images,  all 
contrasts  of  thoughts  and  images,  are  derived  from  living 
much  in  the  valley  of  that  shadow ;  from  having  learned 
life  rather  in  the  vicissitudes  of  man  than  woman ;  from 
the  mind  being  Hebraic.  My  poetry,  except  some  half- 
dozen  pieces,  may  be  consigned  to  oblivion;  but  in  all 
you  would  find  the  sober  hue,  which  to  my  mind's  eye 
blends  equally  with  the  golden  glow  of  sunset,  and  the 
bright  green  of  spring ;  and  is  seen  equally  in  the  temple 
of  delight  as  in  the  tomb  of  decay  and  separation.  I  am 
melancholy  by  nature,  but  cheerful  on  principle." 

There   is  no  real   incongruity  in  the  statements   that 


382  tITERABY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

literary  ambition  preyed  upon  her  from  the  time  she  was 
nine  years  of  age,  and  that  she  did  not  begin  to  read  until 
she  was  twenty-one.  By  the  latter  she  doubtless  meant 
that  until  then  she  had  not  applied  herself  studiously  to  a 
regular  series  of  books.  Her  knowledge  of  English  and 
French  literature,,  and  the  rich  and  various  stores  of 
general  information  ultimately  laid  up  in  her  capacious 
memory  for  the  use  of  her  inventive  faculties,  would  have 
done  honour  to  the  tutelage  even  of  a  Hannah  More. 

In  the  process  of  self-education  she  had  not  only  much 
to  acquire,  she  had  also  much  to  unlearn.  Obsolete 
phrases  of  a  local  dialect  haunt  her  prose,  probably  derived 
from  the  daily  conversation  of  uncultivated  associates, 
caught  up  and  made  habitual  before  her  taste  was  formed 
on  purer  models.  The  mercantile  idiom,  "I  will  write 
you,"  occasionally  occurs ;  and  an  odd  substitution  of  the 
preposition  "of,"  in  the  proper  place  of  the  preposition 
"  for,"  too  often  disfigures  her  style : — "  I  liked  it  more 
than  I  have  liked  anything  of  years,"  "  He  has  not  seen 
you  of  a  year,"  &c.  &c.  This  misuse  of  the  prepositions 
occurs  frequently  in  the  epistles  of  Margaret  Tudor,  Queen 
of  Scotland,  who,  for  instance,  desires  Cardinal  Wolsey  to 
"  thank  his  grace  (King  Henry  VIII.)  of  his  diamond  that 
his  grace  sent  me."  *  Half-consciousness  of  this  habitual  fault 
may  probably  have  induced,  by  way  of  counteraction,  that 
sort  of  fantastical  daintiness  which  sometimes  vitiates  even 
her  familiar  letters.  In  a  writer  of  less  merit  these  faults 
might  be  suffered  to  pass  unremarked ;  they  are  mentioned 
here  chiefly  in  confirmation  of  the  fact  that,  notwithstand- 
ing her  natural  fluency  of  expression,  and  clever  aptitude 
in  the  selection  of  words,  the  general  correctness  and  ele- 
gance of  her  diction  resulted  rather  from  vigilant  care 

*  See  Mrs.  Everett  Green's  '  Letters  of  Koyal  and  Illustrious  Ladies.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  383 

tliaii  from  well-accustomed  habit.  The  resolute  industry 
with  \\-hicli  she  strove  against  all  obstacles  for  excellence, 
can  only  be  appreciated  by  the  separate  consideration  of  at 
least  a  few  of  them. 

The  desire  of  literary  distinction  instead  of  being  incon- 
sistent with  the  settled  apprehension  of  death,  often  accom- 
panies and  grows  out  of  it.  "  Let  us  crown  ourselves  with 
rose-buds  before  they  are  withered,"  is  the  eager  and 
general  voice  of  worldly  regret ;  and  only  a  difference  of 
choice  between  temporal  enjoyments  sejparates  the  idle 
reveller  in  wine  and  smiles  from  the  laborious  candidate 
for  critical  commendation. 

Miss  Jewsbury  received  much  praise,  and  was  enabled 
by  experience  to  appreciate  its  just  value,  as  a  testimony 
that  public  favour  opens  a  way  to  public  usefulness ;  while 
she  also  learned  that  it  cannot  quench  or  allay  that 
craving  of  the  immortal  soul  for  honour  and  approbation 
which  only  Divine  guerdons  can  satisfy.  "Death" — 
that  one  emphatic  word — may  be  taken  as  an  epitome 
of  her  religious  and  spiritual  history.  Whether  it 
assumed  the  form  of  predestined  destruction  to  youth, 
and  life,  and  all  earth's  pleasures,  or  that  of  the  terrific 
precursor  of  an  uncertain  futurity,  this  awful  phantom 
haunted  her  early  and  ceaselessly.  How  it  first  arose  she 
has  not  told.  Perhaps  it  was  in  childhood  or  youth,  from 
witnessing  the  act,  or  the  effect  of  lost  vitality  upon  some 
human  being,  some  pet  animal,  or  even  some  tree  or  plant ; 
perhaps  from  some  such  sentence  as  that  in  Johnson's 
'  Rasselas,'  "  that  what  now  acts  must  continue  its  agency, 
and  what  now  thinks  must  think  on  for  ever."  The 
significance  of  every  incident  and  circumstance  of  daily 
existence  was  enhanced  by  this  dreadful  shadow.  In  the 
fresh  springing  of  every  flower  she  foresaw  the  dust  of  its 


384  LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND. 

decay.  In  every  symptom  of  sickness  or  hazard  of  bodily 
disaster  she  felt  the  premonitions  of  a  sudden  entrance 
upon  a  dark,  illimitable  futurity.  What  is  this  inward 
principle  which  inhabits  and  calls  the  body  mine?  this 
self-conscious  subject  which  apprehends  all  objects  as  apart 
and  exterior  ?  Why  am  I  here,  thinking  and  feeling  at 
this  precise  period,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  millions  of 
sentient  and  intelligent  beings  who  have  preceded  me  on 
this  earth,  who  are  living  and  dying  around  me,  who  will 
follow  and  erase  my  tread  ?  What  is  time,  which  fleets 
along  and  bears  me  on  its  course  ?  What  was  the  origin 
of  evil,  and  why  am  I  its  subject  ?  What  is  the  design  of 
my  Creator  in  placing  me  among  these  many  miseries, 
shut  in  by  these  impenetrable  mysteries  ?  These  awful 
questions,  to  which  every  reflective  mind  has  to  work  out 
its  own  answers,  or  to  find  its  own  solace,  must  deeply 
have  perplexed  and  harassed  hers. 

Scepticism,  in  one  form  or  other,  seems  to  have  been 
through  life  her  besetting  temptation,  and  in  contending 
with  it  her  faith  was  exercised,  strengthened,  and  increased. 
A  weaker  mind,  with  her  ambitious  tendencies,  would  have 
found  its  most  irritating  trials  in  her  external  position  and 
circumstances,  instead  of  in  those 

"  Thoughts  that  strove  with  time,  and  change,  and  anguish, 
For  some  high  place  where  faith  her  wing  might  rest," 

by  which  she  was  experimentally  taught — "  That  religion 
is  not  intuitively  true,  but  a  matter  of  deduction  and 
inference  ;  that  a  conviction  of  its  truth  is  not  forced  upon 
every  one,  but  left  to  be  by  some  collected  with  heedful 
attention  to  premises ;  this  as  much  constitutes  religious 
probation,  as  much  affords  sphere,  scope,  opportunity,  for 
right  and  wrong  behaviour,  as  anything  whatever  does."  * 
*  Bishop  Butler's  '  Analogy,'  part  ii.,  chap.  vi.. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  385 

The  intuitive  sense  of  dependence  upon  Almighty  Power, 
and  the  conviction  of  moral  obligation  to  a  Creator  and 
Preserver  infinitely  good,  the  testimony  of  the  reasoning 
faculty  and  of  the  moral  controller  to  the  principles  of 
riirht  and  wrong,  were  doubtless  strong  in  her.  Assuredly 
she  read,  studied,  prayed,  and  light  emanated  from  the 
}  in £os  of  Scripture  sufficient  for  her  guidance,  and  increas- 
ingly brightening  and  dispelling  cloud  after  cloud,  though 
ix-ver  shining  forth  with  heart-cheering  splendour. 

Of  her  works  separately  published  the  .principal  were^ 
'Phantasmagoria,  or  Essays  on  Life  and  Literature;' 

*  Letters  to  the  Young ;'  '  Lays  for  Leisure  Hours ;'  and 

*  The  Three  Histories/     All  of  them  attained  a  high  degree 
of  popularity.     The  last  is  reckoned  indisputably  her  best. 

Her  *  Three  Histories  '  comprise  those  of  an  Enthusiast, 
a  Nonchalant,  and  a  Realist.  In  the  first  there  is  cer- 
tainly a  misnomer  ;  the  heroine  as  a  child  might  in  parts 
be  deemed  enthusiastic,  but  grows  up  into  a  selfish  woman 
of  genius,  full  of  worldly  ambition,  which  predominates 
strongly  over  her  few  and  weak  social  affections ;  valuing 
her  rare  abilities  and  attainments  merely  as  forming  a 
lever  to  raise  her  into  the  sphere  of  fashionable  distinc- 
tion ;  delighting  neither  in  literature  nor  in  anything  else 
for  its  own  sake ;  not  loving  with  that  true  affection  which 
rests  satisfied  in  finding  an  appropriate  object,  while 
regarding  all  adventitious  advantages  as  pleasant  super- 
fluities, Julia  seeks  not  the  gratification  of  her  friends, 
nor  her  own  in  theirs,  nor  in  the  joy  of  conscious  useful- 
ness. Her  genius  is  made  a  wretched  slave  of  the  lamp,  a 
ministering  drudge  to  vanity  and  worldliness.  Having  an 
independent  fortune,  she  neither  writes  for  bread,  nor  for 
the  additional  comforts  or  luxuries  of  terrene  existence : 
fame,  the  trumpet-sound,  the  far  reverberation,  the  adula- 

2  c 


386  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

tion  of  strangers,  the  establishment  of  a  name  in  the 
records  of  futurity,  is  the  great  object  of  her  life.  Julia  is 
not  a  genuine  enthusiast,  devoting  heart  and  soul,  genius 
and  its  fruits,  to  the  promotion  of  any  one  extraneous  and 
special  purpose.  She  is  not  ennobled  by  her  fine  faculties, 
but  debased ;  and  having  sown  the  wind,  no  reader  pities 
her  when  she  reaps  the  whirlwind. 

This  tale  evinces  much  ability  in  the  delineation  of 
character.  The  grandmother  deserves  to  live  and  last 
among  the  inhabitants  of  our  popular  world  of  fiction. 

The  '  Nonchalant '  would  have  been  more  justly  named 
the  '  Brokenhearted.'  There  is  a  dreamy,  sickly  haze 
over  this  supposititious  autobiography,  but  it  bears,  per- 
haps, the  record  of  much  personal  feeling.  The  gloomy 
hero  resembles  a  planet,  which,  passing  through  deep 
masses  of  cloud,  pierces  them  every  now  and  then  with 
rays  which  promise  a  triumphant  emergence. 

The  '  Realist '  merits  its  title,  and  is  conceived  in  a 
strong  and  healthful,  though  somewhat  hard  state  of  mind. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  ability  displayed  in  the  construc- 
tion of  either  of  these  *  Histories  '  that  impresses  the  reader 
with  respect  for  Miss  Jewsbury's  genius,  as  the  combined 
effect  of  the  "  Three :"  the  able  depiction  of  so  many  dis- 
tinctly-marked characters  carrying  with  it  the  conviction 
of  unusual  skill,  and  of  still  latent  power. 

The  following  pieces  are  specimens  of  her  average  merit 
in  poetry : — 

THE  WEEPEK  AT  THE  SEPULCHKE. 
"  A  sound  in  yonder  glade, 

But  not  of  fount  or  breeze, 
A  sound — but  of  the  whispering  made 

By  the  palm  and  the  olive  trees ; 
It  is  not  the  minstrel's  lute, 

Nor  the  swell  of  the  night-bird's  song, 
Nor  the  city's  hum,  when  all  else  is  mute, 
By  echo  borne  along. 


LITKKAKY    Wi'MKN    OF    ENGLAND.  387 

'T  is  a  voice— the  Saviour's  own — 

'  Woman,  why  wecpcst  thou  ? ' 
She  turns — and  her  grief  is  for  ever  flown, 

And  the  shade  that  dimmed  her  brow  ; 
He  is  there,  her  risen  Lord, 

No  more  to  know  decline  ; 
He  is  there,  with  peace  in  his  every  word, 

The  wept  one— still  divine. 

1  My  father's  throne  to  share, 

As  King,  as  God  I  go, 
But  a  Brother's  heart  will  be  with  me  there, 

For  my  brethren  left  below  ! ' 
The  weeper  is  laid  in  dust, 

Her  Lord  is  throned  on  high, 
But  ours  may  be  still  that  weeper's  trust, 

And  ours  that  Lord's  reply. 

Mourner — 'mid  nature's  bloom, 

Dimming  its  light  with  tears, — 
And  captive — to  whom  the  lone  dark  room 

Grows  darker  yet  with  fears, — 
And  spirit— that  like  a  bird 

Rests  not  on  sea  or  shore, — 
The  voice  in  the  olive-glade  once  heard, 

Hear  ye — and  weep  no  more  !  " 


PASSING  AWAY. 

1 1  asked  the  stars,  in  the  pomp  of  night, 
Gilding  its  blackness  with  crowns  of  light, 
Bright  with  beauty,  and  girt  with  power, 
Whether  eternity  were  not  their  dower  ; 
And  dirge-like  music  stole  from  their  spheres 
Bearing  this  message  to  mortal  ears  : 

'  We  have  no  light  that  hath  not  been  given  ; 
We  have  no  strength  but  shall  soon  be  riven  ; 
We  have  no  power  wherein  man  may  trust ; 
Like  him  are  we  things  of  time  and  dust ; 
And  the  legend  we  blazon  with  beam  and  ray, 
And  the  song  of  our  silence  is  "  passing  away." 

We  shall  fade  in  our  beauty,  the  fair  and  bright, 
Like  lamps  that  have  served  for  a  festal  night ; 
We  shall  fall  from  our  spheres,  the  old  and  strong, 
Like  rose-leaves  swept  by  the  breeze  along  ; 
The  worshipped  as  gods  in  the  olden  day, 
We  shall  be  like  a  vain  dream — "  passing  away." 

2   C   2 


388  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

From  the  stars  of  heaven,  and  the  flowers  of  earth, 
From  the  pageant  of  power,  and  the  voice  of  mirth, 
From  the  mist  of  morn  on  the  mountain's  brow, 
From  childhood's  song  and  affection's  vow, 
From  all,  save  that  o'er  which  soul  bears  sway, 
Breathes  but  one  record — "  passing  away." 

"  Passing  away,"  sing  the  breeze  and  rill, 
As  they  sweep  in  their  course  by  vale  and  hill ; 
Through  the  varying  scenes  of  each  earthly  clime, 
'T  is  the  lesson  of  nature,  the  voice  of  time  ; 
And  man  at  last,  like  his  fathers  grey, 
Writes  in  his  own  dust — "  passing  away." '  " 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  POETESSES. 

A.D.  1835.    PAKT  I. 

Felicia-Dorothea  Hemans. 


But  oh,  the  price  of  bitter  tears, 

Paid  for  the  lonely  power, 
That  throws  at  last  o'er  desert  years, 

A  darkly  glorious  dower ! 
Like  flower-seeds,  by  the  wild  wind  spread, 

So  radiant  thoughts  are  strewed  ; 
The  soul  whence  those  high  gifts  are  shed 

May  faint  in  solitude ! 
And,  who  will  think,  when  the  strain  is  sung, 

Till  a  thousand  hearts  are  stirred, 
What  life-drops  from  the  minstrel  wrung 

Have  gushed  with  every  word  ?" 

MRS.  HEMANS  :  '  The  Diver. 


FELICIA-DOROTHEA  HEMANS. 

MR.  GEORGE  BROWNE,  an  eminent  merchant  of  Liver- 
pool, was  by  birth  an  Irishman,  and  traced  his  descent 
from  a  branch  of  the  Sligo  and  Kilmaine  family.  In  the 
year  1786,  he  married  Felicia,  daughter  of  Mr.  Benedict- 
Paul  Wagner,  the  Imperial  and  Tuscan  Consul-General  at 
Liverpool,  and  of  his  wife,  Miss  Elizabeth  Haydock,  of 
Rivington,  in  the  county  of  Lancaster.  Mrs.  Browne  was 
a  woman  of  superior  understanding,  highly-cultivated 
talents,  and  refined  taste;  and  all  the  children  of  this 
num-iuge  who  attained  maturity  were  distinguished  by 


390  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

kindred  qualities  and  accomplishments.  Felicia-Dorothea, 
the  fifth  child,  was  born  in  Duke  Street,  Liverpool,  on  the 
25th  of  September,  1793,  and  was  early  found  to  be  en- 
dowed with  the  two  most  precious  of  all  temporal  gifts — 
beauty  and  genius. 

Mr.  Browne  having  suffered  a  great  reverse  of  fortune, 
in  consequence  of  the  commercial  difficulties  which  at- 
tended the  close  of  the  last  century,  broke  up  his  establish- 
ment at  Liverpool,  and  removed  in  the  year  1800,  with 
his  wife  and  family,  to  the  sea-coast  of  Denbighshire,  in 
North  Wales,  where  he  tenanted  the  solitary  old  mansion- 
house  of  Gwrych,  situated  less  than  two  miles  to  the  west- 
ward of  the  little  town  of  Abergele.  The  juvenile 
companions  of  Felicia  Browne  in  this  migration  were  her 
eldest  brother,  Thomas-Henry,  born  in  1787 ;  her  second 
brother,  George-Baxter,  and  a  sister  named  Eliza,  her 
only  surviving  seniors ;  besides  a  brother  named  Claude- 
Scott,  one  year  her  junior,  and  a  sister,  Harriet-Mary, 
born  in  1798,  the  youngest  of  the  seven.  Under  the 
judicious  instruction  of  her  mother,  Felicia  Browne  learned 
with  facility  the  elements  of  general  knowledge,  evincing 
peculiar  aptness  for  the  acquisition  of  languages,  for  draw- 
ing, and  for  music ;  while  deriving  information  with  extra- 
ordinary quickness,  clearness,  and  vividness  of  perception, 
from  all  things  visible,  audible,  and  tangible.  The  more 
she  knew,  the  more  she  desired  to  know ;  and  the  eager 
spirit  of  inquiry  was  accompanied  by  ever-increasing 
ambition  for  the  attainment  of  intellectual,  moral,  and 
religious  excellence. 

A  sensitive  person,  however  ingenuous  the  natural  dis- 
position may  be,  is  always  influenced  in  the  sort  and 
degree  of  communicativeness  by  the  characters  of  the 
friends  in  whom  confidence  is  placed ;  so  that  to  each  will 


LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  391 

l»e  impartril  only  that  subject,  and  to  that  extent  which  is 
likely  to  meet  with  sympathy.  A  look,  a  word,  a  gesture, 
or  t lie  want  of  a  look,  a  word,  a  gesture,  will  stop  the  flow, 
or  stint  its  measure.  Thus  it  happens  that  more  or  less 
reserve  is  maintained,  even  towards  friends  whom  they 
dearly  love,  by  the  most  spontaneous  and  guileless  of 
human  beings ;  for  absolute  and  entire  confidence  being 
possible  only  in  cases  of  perfect  congeniality,  can  very 
rarely  exist.  Thoughtful  children,  whose  knowledge  of 
character  is  of  course  superficial,  and  who  trust  the  most 
those  on  whose  kindness  they  most  rely,  are  often  pain- 
fully shocked  and  disappointed  at  finding  their  minds' 
incipient  workings  despised,  their  questionings  repelled, 
and  their  fresh  feelings  unshared  by  such  friends.  Hap- 
pily for  Felicia  Browne,  the  singular  combination  in 
her  mother's  character  of  tenderness,  intelligence,  and 
judgment,  encouraged  confidence  to  the  utmost ;  and  while 
the  gifted  child  poured  out  her  thoughts  and  feelings,  her 
difficulties  and  aspirations,  she  found  habitually  the  sym- 
pathy of  a  maternal  heart,  and  the  kind  guidance  of  a 
wise  and  pious  counsellor.  She  needed  no  one  to  point 
out  to  her  or  to  define  for  her  what  was  praiseworthy, 
either  in  the  things  of  sense,  of  intellect,  or  of  moral 
feeling :  natural  affection  led  her  to  love,  to  seek,  and  to 
seize  upon  it,  even  before  the  faculty  of  judgment  came 
into  exercise.  Besides  this  kind  of  instinctive  tendency 
towards  noble,  beautiful,  and  refined  sights,  sounds,  and 
<j utilities,  she  possessed  that  precious  privilege  of  genius 
which  enables  children  to  comprehend  and  to  appreciate 
the  high  principles  and  sentiments  of  their  teacher,  and  to 
answer  like  the  tone  of  a  musical  instrument  to  the  con- 
genial touch. 

In  the  life  of  Mrs.  Browne  true  religion  was  exemplified. 


392  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

She  seldom  spoke  upon  the  subject,  unless  by  way  of  direct 
instruction ;  but  her  habitual  look  of  care  was  set  aside, 
and  her  fine  countenance  brightened  with  serene  joy,  as 
she  daily  read  the  Bible  to  her  children,  and  tried  to 
impress  upon  her  little  Felicia,  whose  thoughts  were  often 
wandering  after  birds'  nests  and  new-blown  primroses  in 
the  dingles,  the  heart-touching  trulhs  concerning  a  Divine 
Creator,  Father,  and  Saviour.  Among  the  earliest  im- 
pressions which  the  gifted  girl  received  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, or  probably  from  any  book,  were  the  pastoral  images 
of  patriarchal  life,  the  tents,  the  palm-trees,  the  fountains 
of  the  desert,  the  rocks,  the  reposing  flocks,  and  the  slow 
procession  of  the  loaded  camels.  The  effect  produced 
upon  ordinary  children  by  pictorial  illustrations  is  much 
fainter  and  slighter  than  that  produced  upon  Felicia 
Browne  was  by  words  heard  and  read ;  for  out  of  those 
words  her  mind  made  pictures,  vivid  and  durable  enough 
to  serve  in  after  years  as  the  basis  of  accurate  descriptions. 

Her  senses  were  acute,  exact,  and  delicately  fine ;  her 
temperament  was  sanguine,  sensitive,  and  easily  agitated, 
blending  the  liveliness,  pathos,  and  piquancy  of  Irish 
music ;  her  intellect  was  of  that  rare  kind  which,  discern- 
ing things  at  a  glance,  and  not  by  a  process  of  reasoning, 
seizes  on  them  and  firmly  grasps  them  as  its  own  for 
ever. 

The  six  first  years  of  her  life,  passed  in  wealth  and  ease, 
seem  to  have  left  only  the  broad  general  impressions  that 
conveniences  and  elegancies  were  familiar  and  congenial 
to  her  habits  and  feelings,  and  that  the  absence  of  them 
was  a  deprivation.  The  earliest  remembrances  on  which 
in  after  years  she  liked  to  dwell  were  those  of  the  sea- 
shore at  Gwrych,  when  listening  to  the  cadence  of  the 
waves,  and  watching  the  reflections  of  the  sunset  on  the 


I  ITKRARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  393 

expanse,  she  looked  up  from  the  perusal  of  'Paul  and 
Virginia,'  and  tried  to  realize  the  scenery  of  the  story; 
or  when,  from  the  large  window  of  the  school-room,  gazing 
across  intervening  meadows  of  an  evening  when  the  moon 
was  up,  she  viewed  the  tossing  billows,  and  heard  their 
roar  resounding  from  the  silent  mountains.  While  thus 
acknowledging  the  powerful  effect  of  the  combined  spell 
cast  by  the  beauty  and  sublimity  of  ocean,  the  solemnity 
of  its  never-ceasing  voice,  its  perpetual  restlessness,  its 
endless  varieties  of  appearance,  fatigued  and  wore  her 
excitable  nerves.  The  motion  of  things  without  life  or 
visible  impulsion  is  a  phenomenon  which  often  terrifies 
imaginative  children,  and  that  terror  not  unfrequently 
subsides  into  durable  awe.  The  recollection  of  storms  and 
shipwrecks  elsewhere,  being  added  to  these  local  impres- 
sions, caused  her  always  to  regard  the  sea  as  a  symbol  of 
disquietude. 

Her  sea-side  home  lay  near  to  a  range  of  magnificent 
mountains,  near  to  cliffs  hollowed  out  into  a  wondrous 
cavern  set  with  stalactites  and  stalagmites,  near  brooks 
and  rivers,  and  waterfalls,  and  near  the  fertile  and  lovely 
vale  of  Clwyd,  often  celebrated  by  native  bards. 

The  districts  lying  along  the  northern  coast  of  Wales 
are  thickly  marked  with  the  memorials  of  pre-historic 
ages,  with  the  fortresses,  courts,  and  temples  of  the  Ancient 
Britons,  their  funereal  mounds,  cairns,  altars,  and  stone- 
chests,  with  Roman  camps  and  roads,  and  Norman  castles : 
they  are  also  held  sacred  in  local  tradition  as  birth-places 
and  homes  of  the  native  sovereign  princes,  and  as  the 
scenes  of  battles  and  other  important  events  celebrated  in 
the  songs  of  the  bards,  and  recorded  in  the  histories  and 
legends  of  the  country. 

The  Pass  of  Cefn  yr  Ogo,  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 


394  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

hood  of  Gwrych,  has  been  the  scene  of  many  desperate 
conflicts  between  the  Welsh  princes  with  their  forces  and 
the  invading  armies  of  the  Saxon,  Norman,  and  Plan- 
tagenet  kings  of  England  ;  and  it  is  believed  that  no  spot 
in  the  Principality  has  been  more  thoroughly  saturated 
with  blood. 

At  eight  years  of  age  Felicia  Browne  wrote  a  little 
poem  on  the  subject  of  her  mother's  birth-day.  Even  her 
childish  lines  were  poetical  and  harmonious,  select  in 
diction,  and  correct  in  rhyme.  Her  natural  aptness  for 
the  art  of  poetry  was  as  manifest  as  that  of  the  Servian 
Hey  due  Kjurtschia  for  the  occupation  of  a  marksman, 
when  the  very  first  shot  he  ever  fired  hit  the  target — a 
feat  which  practised  hands  often  failed  in.  Clever  children 
sopn  become  aware  from  the  words  and  looks  of  their 
relations  and  friends,  that  progressive  improvement  is  ex- 
pected from  them,  and  the  ambition  of  surpassing  former 
achievements  is  unceasingly  stimulated  by  this  conviction. 

She  was  a  joyous,  sociable,  and  sportive  child ;  agile  in 
the  race,  elastic  in  the  swing,  ingenious  in  weaving  gar- 
lands of  flowers,  in  painting,  decorating,  and  launching 
little  ships,  carolling  the  while  as  blithely  as  the  birds, 
and  even  more  sweetly.  Yet  hours  there  were  when  she 
preferred  solitude  alike  to  the  presence  of  her  darling 
playmates  and  to  the  companionship  of  her  supremely 
beloved  mother — hours  when  she  silently  wrought  the  rich 
tapestry  of  her  own  imaginings  or  revelled  for  the  first 
time  among  the  thoughts  of  one  or  other  of  the  world's 
master-minds.  There  was  an  orchard  at  Gwrych  to  which 
she  was  fond  of  resorting  upon  such  occasions,  in  order  to 
isolate  herself  from  all  ordinary  influences.  The  trees  in 
it  were  old,  or  had  acquired  the  gnarled  aspect  of  age  from 
proximity  to  the  sea :  in  the  sunny  spring-time  moss,  be- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  395 

ir< 'mined  with  primroses,  cushioned  their  bases;  lichens 
encrusted  the  trunks  and  boughs,  and  some  of  the  branches, 
bout  downward  by  the  northern  wind,  offered  themselves  as 
wild  settees  or  as  steps  to  clefts  higher  up.  Admiring  the 
tinted  petals  that  bestrewed  the  turf,  and  soothed  by  the 
bees'  soft  hum  among  the  living  blossoms,  she  delighted  to 
climb  into  a  nook  in  a  favourite  tree,  and  there,  hidden  like 
the  birds'  nests  by  screens  of  apple-bloom,  to  enjoy  at  once 
nature's  dreamy  stillness,  the  soft  perfume,  and  Shakspeare's 
plays,  interrupted  now  and  then  by  the  twigs  which  stirred  to 
the  light  wind,  and  peeping  up  at  the  blue  sky  as  her  light 
canopy  swayed  to  and  fro,  just  realising  her  happiness,  and 
then  again  yielding  to  absorption. 

Deeply  impressed  by  Shakspeare's  delineations  of  cha- 
racter, and  more  especially  of  female  character,  she  longed 
to  be,  or  at  least  to  personify,  such  of  them  as  she  most 
admired.  Imogen  and  Beatrice  were  her  favourites,  for  she 
was  drawn  towards  them  by  the  strong  sympathy  of  con- 
scious resemblance.  Rosalind,  an  amalgamation  of  the  two, 
would  probably  have  concentrated  her  preference  had  the 
sorrows  of  that  heroine  equalled  those  of  Imogen.  In  the 
midst  of  mauifold  enjoyments,  and  in  the  fullness  of  their 
gratification,  Felicia  Browne  recognised  the  possession  of  a 
keen  capacity  for  sorrow ;  and  a  lady  having  once  im- 
prudently said  aloud  of  her,  in  her  hearing,  "  That  child  is 
not  made  for  happiness,  her  colour  comes  and  goes  too  fast," 
the  words  shocked  her  spirits  at  the  time,  and  often  recurred 
to  her  memory  as  prophetic,  until  events  realized  them. 

Apart  from  the  painful  participation  which  a  precocious 
and  affectionate  girl  must  occasionally  feel  in  a  parent's 
cares,  the  buoyant  yet  tender  Felicia  Browne,  at  ten  years 
of  age,  experienced  her  first  grief  in  the  death  of  her 
amiable  eldest  sister  Eliza.  She  wrote  some  consola- 


396  LITEBAEY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

tory  stanzas  on  the  occasion,  and  inscribed  them  to  her 
mother. 

Vaguely  feeling  that  she  had  to  fulfil  some  peculiar 
purpose  in  the  world  by  means  of  yet  latent  poetic  ability, 
visions  of  future  fame  and  future  usefulness  often  floated 
through  her  fancy.  She  had  a  natural  intolerance  of  all 
things  base,  and  harsh,  and  coarse.  Beauty,  sublimity, 
and  refinement  she  sought  in  all  things,  with  a  preference 
rather  inclining  towards  minute  details  than  extent  or 
vastness.  Her  pursuits  were  spontaneous  growths  of  un- 
suggested  interests.  She  loved  books  as  she  loved  the 
fresh  air  and  sunshine,  and  she  read  them  of  her  own 
accord  and  at  her  own  free  choice,  for  she  had  access  to 
"  an  ample  library." 

The  word  library,  when  applied  to  a  country  house, 
usually  means  a  mere  accumulation  of  books,  an  acci- 
dental aggregate  of  multifarious  lore.  There  are  the 
wrecks  and  waifs  of  the  late  divine,  the  late  lawyer,  the 
late  justice  of  the  peace,  the  late  militia  officer,  and  the 
late  agriculturist.  There  are  the  vellum  MSS.  of  ruined 
abbeys,  the  black-letter  quartos  and  Elizabethan  folios, 
which  have  ancestrally  descended  through  the  hands  of 
successive  knights  and  squires,  seldom  opene.d  and  never 
read.  There  are  the  hereditary  receipt-books  of  succes- 
sively presiding  dames,  their  several  prayer-books,  whole 
duties,  novels,  and  fairy  tales.  There  are  the  poems,  the 
essays,  and  histories  which  for  the  last  hundred  and  fifty 
years  each  generation  of  inhabitants  has  regularly  bought 
and  set  up  in  showy  bindings.  There  also,  perchance,  may 
be  seen  the  shattered  hacks  of  the  district  book-club, 
parochially  settled  at  last  after  weary  gyrations ;  annuals 
in  faded  finery,  and  huge  masses  of  covered  and  coverless 
pamphlets,  diminishing  gradually  under  the  frequent 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  397 

peculations  of  a  sentimental  housemaid  or  a  marauding 
cook. 

Among  Felicia  Browne's  favourite  books  were  Home's 
tragedy  of  *  Douglas,'  *  The  Chronicle '  of  Froissart,  and 
that  pet  of  many  households,  '  Letters  from  Tripoli,'  a 
work  written  by  the  sister-in-law  of  the  English  Consul  at 
that  port.  Her  choice  from  the  earliest  period  denotes 
that  she  valued  books  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of 
aliment  which  they  supplied  to  poetic  growth.  Nor  were 
oral  traditions  lost  upon  her.  All  the  popular  super- 
stitions of  Wales  have  in  them  that  "something  more 
heroical  "  than  common  life,  which  the  mind  of  an  imagin- 
ative people  has  ever  loved  to  feign  of  an  unrecorded  past, 
and  of  the  un comprehended  mysteries  of  the  surrounding 
natural  world.  One  of  the  three  species  of  animals  which 
have  peculiar  prominence  in  the  oldest  of  such  traditions 
is  the  black,  shaggy  whish-hound.  Departed  spirits  and 
malignant  fiends  are  said  to  have  appeared  in  the  fright- 
ful form  of  dogs  with  flaming  eye-balls ;  these  terrible 
hounds  usually  hunt  in  packs,  but  occasionally  a  single 
dog  pays  a  domiciliary  visit,  or  suddenly  becomes  visible 
stalking  grimly  by  the  benighted  traveller's  side,  or  con- 
fronting the  twilight  rover  in  some  narrow  dell  transfixes 
him  with  unearthly  glaring  eyes,  and  bewilders  his  senses 
with  the  ineffable  horror  of  its  howl.*  Gwrych  had  the 
reputation  of  being  haunted  by  one  of  these  monsters, 
which  was  said  to  keep  midnight  watch  at  the  end  of  the 
avenue.  Courageous  in  conscious  self-devotion  to  "  God 
and  all  goodness,"  incredulous,  yet  eager  for  a  glimpse  of 
a  preternatural  visitant,  she  sallied  forth,  secretly  and 

*  See  '  Cambrian  Tales,'  by  Jane  Williams,  in  •  Ainsworth's  Magazine ' 
for  June,  1849. 


398  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

alone,  one  moonlight  night  for  the  encounter ;  but  even 
her  vivid  imagination,  wanting  the  adjuncts  of  ignorance 
and  malady,  failed  to  conjure  up  the  fiery  phantom. 

Among  her  juvenile  rhymes  there  is  an  '  Invocation  to 
the  Fairies '  to  visit  her  sister  Harriet's  grotto.  It  shows 
a  general  acquaintance  with  the  habits  usually  assigned  to 
the  small  people,  and  especially  their  gifts,  their  dances, 
and  their  music.  She  must  often  have  heard  Welshwomen 
sing  the  '  Torriad  y  Dydd ' — The  Break  of  Day,  commonly 
called  *  Can  y  Tylwyth  Teg ' — the  fairies'  song ;  seen  in 
the  turfy  grass  the  bright  green  circles  attributed  to  their 
footsteps,  and  heard  of  their  presents  made  to  the  neat 
and  industrious.  Her  request  that  they  will  bring  fruit 
"  in  baskets  made  of  rush,"  seems  significant  of  her  ad- 
miration of  the  pretty  tiny  baskets  woven  to  contain  bil- 
berries by  the  Welsh  children.  After  inviting  the  fairies 
to  bring  with  them  various  musical  instruments,  she  begs 
them  at  last  to  dance  to  the  dulcet  sound  of  the  national 
harp,  in  which  through  real  life,  as  well  as  in  fairy  tales, 
she  took  delight.  Sensitive  to  the  utmost  degree,  and 
exquisitely  susceptible  of  pain,  whether  mental  or  physical, 
she  shrunk  from  every  form  of  it  with  instinctive  dread, 
although  she  was  by  no  means  cowardly  or  timid.  She 
loved  the  chivalry  of  war,  but  would  have  loathed  its 
carnage.  She  liked  to  listen  to  the  wind,  and  found  in 
every  several  tree  an  ^Eolian  harp  of  distinctive  tone. 
Even  the  gale  and  the  hurricane,  in  their  wild  gusts  and 
magnificent  careers,  held  over  her  a  sort  of  fascination 
which  enchained  attention  and  gratified  her  fancy  while 
wearing  down  her  spirits  to  exhaustion.  The  rapid  flitting 
of  shadows  in  windy  weather,  when  light  clouds  are  scud- 
ding across  the  sky — a  phenomenon  familiar  to  every 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  399 

ul  (servant  child  in  a  mountain  land— seems  early  to  have 
fixed  her  attention;  and  all  Nature's  teachings  glowed  as 
poetry  within  her. 

Mountains,  the  sea,  and  London,  have  been  pronounced 
important  points  in  youthful  training.  Felicia  Browne 
had  long  profited  by  the  two  first,  and  at  eleven  years  of 
age  she  completed  the  mind-enlarging  triad  of  sights, 
he  ing  taken  to  London  by  her  parents  on  a  visit,  and 
spending  the  winter  there  with  them.  She  had  antici- 
pated the  event  with  fervid  expectation  —  music,  the 
drama,  and  works  of  art  giving  it  a  strong  claim  upon  her 
imagination.  She  was  taken  to  the  theatres,  to  the  opera- 
house,  to  other  public  places  and  exhibitions  of  various 
kinds,  and  shown  all  the  ancient  and  modern  wonders  of 
the  metropolis:  nevertheless,  keen  as  her  capacity  for 
such  enjoyments  was,  the  contrast  of  confined  and  crowded 
streets  and  of  social  constraint  with  the  glory,  freshness, 
and  freedom  of  her  mountain  abode,  forced  from  her  in 
an  early  letter  the  confession  that  she  felt  "  satiated  with 
opera,  park,  and  play,  and  longing  to  get  away  more  than 
she  ever  did  to  come."  *  Some  verses  which  she  addressed 
about  the  same  time  to  her  youngest  brother  and  sister, 
who  were  left  in  Wales,  express  also  her  earnest  wish  to 
rejoin  them  in  their  rural  amusements.  Returning  to 
Gwrych  for  the  intervening  months,  she  again  accom- 
panied her  parents  to  London,  and  spent  the  following 
winter  with  them  there.  It  was  during  one  or  other  of 
these  sojourns  that  in  viewing  the  Bridgewater-Stafford 
Gallery  her  cordial  out-spoken  delight,  and  the  familiar 
acquaintance  which  she  betrayed  with  the  recondite  subjects 
of  many  of  the  pictures,  attracted  the  attention  and  excited 
the  admiring  interest  of  a  party  of  distinguished  persons 

*  Cliorley's  'Memorials,'  vol.  i.,  p.  27. 


400  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

who  chanced  to  be  present.  Her  feeling  for  sculpture  was 
as  strong  as  for  painting,  and,  if  possible,  still  more  intense. 
When  led  into  a  gallery  of  fine-  statues,  the  first  sight 
struck  her  with  such  solemn  joy,  that,  hastily  interrupting 
the  conversation  of  her  friends,  she  uttered  the  involuntary 
exclamation,  "  Oh,  hush !  don't  speak."  From  these  two 
winters,  thus  spent,  she  derived  more  knowledge  of  the 
drama  and  of  works  of  art  than  any  unimaginative  person 
could  possibly  conjecture  ;  for,  besides  obtaining  in  many 
instances  the  embodiment  of  vague  ideal  forms,  she  found 
also  suggestive  aids  to  future  poetic  conceptions.  She 
never  again  saw  London. 

Many  years  afterwards,  she  formed  an  intention  of 
writing  her  autobiographical  '  Recollections  of  a  Poet's 
Childhood;'  that  she  never  executed  that  design  affords 
little  cause  for  regret,  because,  judging  from  works  of  the 
kind  produced  by  other  authors,  it  would  seem  to  be  abso- 
lutely impossible  to  recall,  unaltered  and  in  their  pristine 
glow,  the  facts  of  one's  mental  history ;  the  haze  and  fog 
of  intervening  time  casting  distorting  shades  upon  the 
faded  pictures,  while  fancy's  pencil,  in  retouching,  spoils 
them.  A  friend  once  showed  the  writer  a  landscape  done 
by  a  clever  artist,  and  asked,  "  What  is  it  ?"  The  ques- 
tion was  perplexing,  yet  the  instantaneous  answer  chanced 
to  be  correct :  "  It  is  Brecknockshire  scenery  with  Devon- 
shire colouring."  Such  incongruities  are  all  present  pic- 
tures of  the  past.  The  simplest  and  slightest  contem- 
porary remains  far  out-value  all  elaborated  recollections ; 
and  such  remains  are,  happily,  preserved  in  the  productions 
of  Felicia  Browne's  childhood  and  early  youth.  She 
could  not  then  analyse  her  feelings,  but  she  could,  and  did, 
clearly  manifest  them ;  feelings  evanescent  as  the  vary- 
ing lights  of  a  spring  morning,  which  no  subsequent  recol- 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  401 

lrrtion  of  associated  incidents,  actions,  and  projects  could 
ivstore.  As  usual  with  children,  her  earliest  writings 
were  rather  declaratory  than  descriptive  or  sentimental, 
and  related  chiefly  to  family  occurrences,  the  things  she 
saw,  the  books  she  read,  and  the  public  news  she  heard. 
Her  eldest  brother  entered  the  army  in  the  year  1806, 
and  her  second  brother  not  long  afterwards,  for  verses 
severally  addressed  to  them  mention  that,  within  two 
years  from  that  date,  both  were  serving  as  subalterns  in 
the  23rd  regiment  of  foot,  commonly  called  the  Koyal 
Welsh  Fusiliers.  Hence,  her  military  ardour  was  en- 
kindled, and  her  sympathy  awakened  for  the  oppressed 
inhabitants  of  the  Peninsula.  A  sonnet  penned  by  her  in 
a  contemplative  mood  at  the  age  of  thirteen  might  readily 
be  mistaken  for  one  by  Charlotte  Smith  in  her  prime.  It 
begins — 

"  I  love  to  haU  the  mild,  the  balmy  hour." 

She  was  the  darling  and  pride  of  her  own  family,  and 
all  who  knew  her  felt  the  attractive  and  attaching  spell  of 
her  beauty  and  her  genius.  Her  juvenile  verses  were 
justly  deemed  to  give  sure  earnest  of  living  poetry  to 
come ;  and  friends,  in  their  fond  partiality,  believed  that 
the  multitudes  of  strangers  called  the  public  would  indul- 
gently trouble  themselves  to  examine  and  admire  a  clever 
child's  crude  thoughts  and  correctly-worded  exercises  in 
French  and  English  prosody.  Two  motives  influenced 
the  young  authoress  in  consenting  to  their  publication — 
the  desire  to  obtain  an  open  recognition  of  the  talent  for 
poetry  which  she  consciously  possessed,  and  the  desire  to 
assist  the  straitened  income  of  her  noble-minded  mother ; 
success  in  the  former  involving,  to  her  sanguine  expecta- 
tion, the  means  of  effecting  her  dutiful  design.  The 
poems,  headed  by  some  elegant  introductory  stanzas,  ad- 

2   D 


402  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

dressed  to  the  Viscountess  Kirkwall,  dated  "  Gwrych, 
October  1,  1807,"  were  printed  by  subscription  in  a  quarto 
volume,  and  published  at  Liverpool  in  1808,  with  a  dedi- 
cation to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  "  by  his  Koyal  Highness's 
gracious  permission" — a  privilege  betokening  friends  at 
court. 

Although  the  contents  of  this  volume  had  unquestion- 
able merit  as  the  production  of  a  child,  they  chanced  to 
provoke  the  harsh  animadversions  of  a  cynical  reviewer, 
which  so  discouraged  and  distressed  the  young  aspirant  as 
to  bring  on  an  illness.  From  this,  however,  she  soon 
recovered,  and,  with  renewed  zeal,  returned  to  her  beloved 
pursuits,  and  set  about  the  preparation  of  a  poem  more 
ambitious  in  its  aim  and  of  greater  length  than  any  she 
had  before  attempted.  Her  strong  family  affections  bore 
her  mind  away  to  every  region  trodden  by  those  she 
loved ;  her  perceptive  power  enabled  her  to  inhale,  as  it 
were,  all  the  congenial  information  they  severally  ac- 
quired ;  her  indomitable  energy  impelled  her  to  search 
out  in  books  all  necessary  knowledge  bearing  on  particular 
subjects ;  her  vivid  imagination  gave  form  and  colour, 
harmonious  and  poetic  life,  to  all ;  and  practice  had  now 
enabled  her,  in  some  degree,  to  mirror  forth  sentiments  in 
apt  words.  Her  *  England  and  Spain'  is  the  first  thing 
she  wrote  which  can  properly  be  termed  a  composition. 
The  style  imitates  that  of  Campbell,  in  his  'Pleasures  of 
Hope.'  In  graceful  selection  and  command  of  language, 
melodious  versification,  historical  knowledge,  and  full  com- 
prehension of  her  subject  and  its  adjuncts ;  in  delicacy  of 
taste,  and  careful  adherence  to  the  example  of  the  best 
standards  of  the  period,  this  poem  is  worthy  to  be  ranked 
with  the  most  successful  efforts  of  poets  and  poetesses  at 
the  age  of  fourteen.  Nevertheless,  a  declamatory  piece, 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  403 

in  which  the  principal  dramatic  personages  consist  of 
nations  and  abstract  qualities,  must,  for  want  of  more 
enduring  connection  with  ordinary  human  sympathies, 
pass  away  with  the  occasion  which  called  it  forth.  It  was 
published  immediately,  excited  great  interest  and  admira- 
tion in  England,  and  was  translated  into  the  Spanish 
language. 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  urge  on  the  soldiers  of  her 
country  to  the  rescue  of  an  oppressed  nation ;  while  her 
mind  was  full  of  enthusiasm  for  Spain;  its  language,  its 
literature,  its  chivalry  and  patriotism,  and  while,  to  her 
imagination,  all  the  world  glistened  as  a  bright  illusion, 
and  human  life  as  a  romantic  fiction,  the  young  poetess 
first  became  acquainted  with  Captain  Hemans,  of  the 
4th  regiment  of  foot,  who  was  then  on  a  visit  in  the 
neighbourhood.  Struck  with  her  extraordinary  beauty,  he 
fell  passionately  in  love  with  her.  He  was  handsome, 
well-bred,  a  soldier,  about  to  embark  for  Spain  to  fight  in 
the  cause  of  freedom,  and  he  was  her  declared  lover. 
She  was  fifteen ;  her  mind  invested  him  with  every  heroic 
and  amiable  attribute,  and  her  honest  heart  fervently  re- 
turned his  affection.  The  real  incompatibility  of  their 
natures  was  plainly  visible  to  the  friends  of  both,  who 
rejoiced  at  the  speedy  departure  of  Captain  Hemans, 
trusting  that  the  time  which  must  of  necessity  elapse  be- 
fore he  could  return  would  serve  to  wear  out  such  unde- 
sirable impressions.  Constancy,  however,  is  an  heroic 
virtue,  and  danger  an  incentive  to  tender  anxiety.  Felicia 
Browne,  therefore,  was  enabled  in  absence  to  etherealise 
and  idolise  her  lover  more  and  more.  In  the  same  year, 
1809,  Mrs.  Browne  and  h,er  family  removed  from  Gwrych, 
about  eight  miles  towards  the  south-eastward,  to  Bronwylfa, 
a  pleasant  country-house  in  the  outskirts  of  the  little  city 

2  D  2 


404  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

of  St.  Asaph,  in  the  county  of  Flint ;  where  they  enjoyed 
more  frequent  opportunities  of  entering  into  suitable  so- 
ciety, without  forfeiting  the  advantages  of  rural  seclusion. 

Mrs.  Browne  had  friends  at  Conway,  a  town  situated 
about  ten  miles  from  Gwrych,  and  on  the  same  line  of 
coast ;  and  with  them  her  daughter  Felicia  occasionally 
spent  a  few  days  in  summer-time.  None  who  have  ever 
trod  the  spot  need  be  reminded  of  its  beauty,  for  the 
diversified  loveliness  of  the  scenery  and  accessories  must 
haunt  the  beholder's  sweetest  dreams  for  many  an  after- 
year.  There,  with  agile  step  and  elastic  frame,  the  joyous 
girl  scaled  the  mountains,  and  joined  in  boating  expedi- 
tions on  the  river  or  the  straits.  There,  stimulated  by 
lively  companionship  and  the  open  air,  her  gay  and  play- 
ful spirits  sometimes  rose  to  overflowing  vivacity ;  and  on 
such  a  visit,  probably,  it  was,  that  in  a  mirthful  freak  she 
used  the  gipsy  fire  which  boiled  the  picnicking  tea-kettle 
to  set  a-light  the  furze  and  heather  on  a  rough  hill-side. 
There  her  pencil  found  employment  in  sketching  various 
landscapes,  or  depicting,  from  different  points  of  view,  the 
most  majestic  ruin  which  time  ever  mouldered  out  of  a 
Norman  fortress.  Within  the  ivied  walls  of  King  Ed- 
ward's castle  she  used  to-  read  and  meditate  for  hours 
together,  and  the  ancient  native  stronghold  of  Diganwy 
suggested  to  her  mind,  as  its  formidable  rival  had  done  in 
former  years,  some  sweet  memorial  verses.  The  pearl- 
fishery  in  the  river  Conway  had  also  a  less  direct  influence 
upon  many  of  her  poems. 

The  two  first  stanzas  of  a  poem  which  she  addressed  in 
1811  to  Edwards,  the  celebrated  harper  of  Conway,  are 
among  the  most  spirited  she  evej:  wrote  : — 

"  Minstrel !  whose  gifted  hand  can  bring 
Life,  rapture,  soul,  from  every  string, 


UTKBABY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  405 

And  wake,  like  bards  of  former  time, 
The  spirit  of  the  harp  sublime  ; 
Oh,  still  prolong  the  varying  strain, 
Oh,  touch  the  enchanted  chords  again  ! 
Thine  is  the  charm  suspending  care, 

The  heavenly  swell,  the  dying  close, 
The  cadence  melting  into  air, 

That  lulls  each  passion  to  repose  : 
While  transport,  lost  in  silence  near, 
Breathes  all  her  language  in  a  tear." 

Public  events  connected  with  the  military  career  of  her 
elder  brothers,  beoks  which  she  had  read,  family  incidents, 
places  she  had  seen,  and  considerations  upon  the  sacred 
strength  and  value  of  home  ties  suggested  by  her  own 
position  and  prospects,  had  led  her  to  write  many  poems 
during  the  last  few  years ;  and  early  in  1812  she  produced 
a  small  volume  entitled  'The  Domestic  Affections,  and 
Other  Poems,'  which  was  favourably  received  by  the  public. 
In  this  collection  the  stanzas  addressed  '  To  my  Mother ' 
are  redolent  of  grateful  love  and  veneration :  acknow- 
ledging boundless  obligations  to  her  for  religious  and  in- 
tellectual training,  she  introduces  the  following  lines, 
which,  coming  from  the  heart,  and  uttering  an  habitual 
feeling,  unveil  an  important  feature  in  the  character  of  the 
poetess : — 

"  And  oh,  if  e'er  I  sighed  to  claim 
The  palm,  the  living  palm  of  fame, 

The  glowing  wreath  of  praise  ; 
If  e'er  I  wished  the  glittering  stores 
That  fortune  on  her  favourite  pours, 
'Twas  but  that  wealth  and  fame,  if  mine, 
Bound  thee  with  streaming  rays  might  shine, 
And  gild  thy  sun-bright  days  I" 

Further  tribute  is  rendered  in  the  subsequent  explanation, 
that  she  knew  such  advantages  could  only  tend  to  the  in- 
crease of  her  mother's  hapjpiness  by  enabling  her  widely  to 

dispense 

"  The  sunshine  of  beneficence." 

In  all  the  poems  of  this  collection  may  be  traced  the  rapid 


406  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

increase  of  knowledge  and  of  poetic  power.  One  of  them, 
*  The  Kuin  and  its  Flowers,'  shows  great  command  of  lyric 
metre  and  of  apposite  and  harmonious  diction,  a  tasteful 
selection  of  suitable  ideas,  and  facility  in  setting  them 
forth  in  the  light  of  her  own  mind;  yet,  blended  with 
personal  observation  and  native  feeling  are  unmistakable 
reminiscences  of  Dr.  Langhorne  and  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
'  The  Domestic  Affections '  might  pass  for  a  poem  by 
Samuel  Kogers,  and  would  do  no  discredit  to  his  name. 
Among  its  dulcet  sounds  and  correctly  pictured  scenes,  her 
favourite  idea  of  the  dead  revisiting  their  friends  on  earth 
is  enunciated  for  the  first  time. 

She  read  with  extraordinary  celerity,  but  with  such  con- 
centrated attention,  that  she  accurately  imaged  the  contents 
of  books  in  her  mind,  and  could  reproduce  them  at  will, 
and  repeat  whole  pages  of  poetry  by  heart  which  she  had 
read  but  once.  The  rapid  action  and  tenacious  grasp  of 
her  memory  were  habitually  as  marvellous  as  in  those 
vaunted  instances  where  memory  constitutes  the  only 
mental  talent.  On  one  occasion,  at  the  request  of  an  in- 
credulous brother,  she  took  up  Heber's  '  Europe,'  a  poem 
containing  four  hundred  and  twenty-four  lines,  which  she 
had  never  seen  before,  and  in  the  space  of  one  hour  and 
twenty  minutes  repeated  the  whole  from  beginning  to  end, 
"without  a  single  mistake  or  a  moment's  hesitation."* 
On  another  occasion,  which  subsequently  excited  observa- 
tion, she  listened  twice  to  Lord  Byron's  '  Stanzas  to  his 
Sister,'  which  were  read  aloud  from  a  manuscript,  and 
immediately  repeated  them  and  wrote  them  down. 

To  the  Italian  and  French  languages,  which  she  had 
acquired  in  childhood,  she  now  added  the  Spanish,  Portu- 
guese, and  German,  thus  fixing  her  attention  upon  the 

*  'Memoir/  p.  14. 


LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  407 

precise  meaning  of  words  and  the  ideas  which  they  convey, 
the  varieties  of  national  idiom,  and  the  general  nature  and 
use  of  language  as  the  exponent  and  vehicle  of  human 
thoughts  and  feelings.  The  natural  attempt  to  find 
English  equivalents  for  the  contents  of  so  many  foreign 
vocabularies  must  have  tended  to  enlarge  her  acquaintance 
with  the  verbal  wealth  of  her  own  language,  bringing  often 
into  active  use  valuable  words  and  phrases,  unknown  and 
disregarded  in  the  scanty  prattle  of  modern  society  and 
the  shallow  stream  of  ordinary  books.  She  doubtless  often 
found,  like  many  another  thoughtful  student,  that  duglott 
dictionaries  are  merely  of  elementary  use,  and  that  the 
meaning  annexed  in  a  foreign  language  to  a  foreign  word 
is  the  true  prompter  of  the  answering  native  term.  She 
did  not  acquire  languages  for  conversational  purposes,  nor 
for  the  sake  of  display ;  her  object  simply  was  to  gain 
access  by  their  means  to  the  treasures  of  their  literature, 
and  there  to  revel  in  the  luxurious  enjoyment  of  new  and 
various  imagery.  Her  talent  for  drawing  was  such  as 
might  have  led  to  distinguished  excellence  in  the  art,  had 
she  given  it  sufficient  time  and  care.  Her  love  of  music 
was  a  passion  secondary  only  to  her  love  of  poetry.  Her 
sister,  whose  musical  genius,  admirable  execution,  and 
fine  taste  rendered  her  a  competent  judge,  says  upon  this 
subject : — "  She  played  both  the  harp  and  piano  with  much 
feeling  and  expression,  and  at  this  time  had  a  good  voice. 

Even  in  her  most  joyous   days  the  strains  she 

preferred  were  always  those  of  a  'pensive  character.  The 
most  skilful  combinations  of  abstract  musical  science  did 
not  interest  or  please  her;  what  she  loved  best  were 
national  airs,  whether  martial  or  melancholy,  amongst 
these  the  Welsh  and  Spanish  were  her  favourites;  and 
whatever  might  be  called  suggestive  music,  as  awakening 


408  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

associations  either  traditional,  local,  or  imaginary.  There 
are  ears  in  which  certain  melodies  are  completely  identified 
with  the  recollection  of  her  peculiarly  soft  and  sostenuto 
touch,  which  gave  to  the  piano  an  effect  almost  approaching 
to  the  swell  of  an  organ."  * 

The  whole  compass  of  polite  literature  and  most  of  the 
fine  arts  might  be  reckoned  among  her  pursuits,  but  the 
essential  attar  she  distilled  from  all  was  poetry.  Her  con- 
versation was  as  rich  in  worth  as  it  was  brilliant  and  de- 
lightful ;  the  Persian  texture  shone  in  unrolling,  but  it 
was  never  unrolled  for  the  sake  of  shining.  Her  personal 
appearance  was  highly  attractive;  she  was  of  middle 
stature  and  slight  in  figure;  her  complexion  was  ex- 
quisitely fair,  clear,  and  bright ;  her  silky  and  luxuriant 
hair  was  in  colour  of  a  rich  golden  brown ;  her  fine  eyes 
were  radiant  with  genius,  and  every  point  about  her  was 
touched  with  elegance.  Her  air  was  graceful,  and  her 
manner  fascinating  in  its  artlessness. 

To  those  persons  who  wonder  that  a  woman,  brought  up 
in  poverty  and  in  rural  seclusion,  could  come  forth,  not 
only  well  read  and  highly  accomplished,  but  likewise 
exquisitely  refined  and  graceful  both  in  mind  and  manners, 
it  may  suffice  to  recommend  a  due  consideration  of  her 
natural  tendencies,  the  home  influences  to  which  she  was 
early  subjected,  the  occasional  intercourse  with  high  bred 
people  which  afforded  opportunities  of  assimilation,  the 
ennobling  effect  of  sublime  and  beautiful  nature,  and  the 
habits  of  the  surrounding  peasantry.  Although  very  young 
when  first  transplanted,  she  was  old  enough  to  be  struck 
with  the  change  of  scene ;  and  the  greatness  and  loveliness 
of  the  Cambrian  mountains  and  valleys  attracted  her  atten- 
tion more  forcibly  than  if  she  had  been  born  in  the  midst 

*  'Memoir,'  pp.  14,  15. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND.  409 

of  them.  No  nation  ever  exceeded  the  Cymry  in  the  con- 
stunt  and  uniform  appreciation  of  good  manners.  With 
them  politeness  has  never  been  the  mere  formal  habit  of  a 
tutored  class,  but  always  the  natural  emanation  of  a  gene- 
rous, affable,  and  gentle  spirit  pervading  the  whole  people. 
High  bred  strangers,  when  visiting  the  Principality,  never 
fail  to  remark  with  admiration  the  courteous  and  graceful 
demeanour  of  the  Welsh  peasantry.  The  poems  of  Church- 
yard, the  descriptions  of  Giraldus,  the  notices  of  Bede, 
and  the  records  of  Koman  writers,  bear  witness  through  a 
period  of  nearly  two  thousand  years  to  this  dignified  and 
distinctive  characteristic  of  the  Cymry.  Their  own  triads 
at  once  inculcate  and  appeal  to  "  the  noble  courtesy  of 
the  Cymric  nation,"  and  the  oldest  national  writings  extant 
breathe  the  same  gracious  and  engaging  spirit.  The  re- 
markable strength  and  tenderness  of  their  family  attach- 
ments may  doubtless  be  attributed  in  some  degree  to  this 
general  observance  of  social  civilities.  The  old  Welsh 
churches,  their  picturesque  sites,  their  vernacular  services, 
and  the  memorial  flowers  and  shrubs  strewn  and  planted 
upon  graves  deeply  impressed  her ;  the  religious  habits  of 
the  people,  their  kind-heartedness  and  liberal  hospitality, 
secured  her  affection,  while  their  music,  their  poetry,  their 
harpers,  their  bards,  and  the  old  traditions  of  their  race, 
poured  like  rills  from  the  mountains  into  her  soul,  supply- 
ing well-springs  to  a  fountain.  » 

Both  by  nature  and  habit  she  was  fitted  rather  for  con- 
templative than  for  active  life.  Her  first  desire  was  self- 
improvement,  and  next  to  that  the  desire  to  promote  the 
happiness  of  her  home  circle  occupied  her  heart ;  while  to 
the  dearest  members  of  that  circle  she  looked  for  immunity 
from  household  cares,  and  for  protection  from  an  unknown 
and  dreaded  outer  world.  She  was  in  truth  "  a  composition 


410  LITEBAEY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  best  and  honourablest  things,"  and  fain  would  have 
grown  into  an  angel  to  exemplify  her  theoretic  notions 
of  exalted  virtue  and  religious  sentiment;  not  such  an 
angel  as  had  the  charge  of  baking  cakes  for  Elijah,  but  one 
to  direct  national  destinies  or  to  harp  and  sing  anthems, 
and  proclaim  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  to  men.  Not 
yet  had  she  learned  experimentally  that  doing  the  will  of 
God  is  exaltation,  be  the  service  what  it  may. 

Such  was  Felicia  Browne  in  1812,  when,  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  she  became  the  wife  of  Captain  Alfred  Hemans, 
who  had  returned  from  the  Spanish  war  and  the  Wal- 
cheren  expedition  an  exacting  valetudinarian.  By  this 
marriage  he  meant  to  appropriate  the  heart  and  hand  of  a 
lovely  and  clever  woman  to  administer  henceforth  exclu- 
sively to  his  comfort  and  satisfaction ;  and  she  gave  her- 
self, heart  and  soul,  to  a  husband  who  was  to  be  for  life 
her  chivalrous  lover,  to  admire  and  pet  her  as  her  fond 
brothers  did,  and  to  delight  and  glory  in  her  like  her  sister 
and  her  mother,  her  transcendant  expectations  ignoring  a 
mediocrity  of  happiness. 

Captain  Hemans  had  been  appointed  adjutant  of  the 
Northamptonshire  Militia,  and  the  first  year  of  her  married 
life  was  consequently  spent  with  him  at  Daventry.  The 
Watling-street,  a  Roman  camp,  and  the  old  mansion-house 
and  church  in  Fawsley-park,  were  the  only  outward  objects 
of  local  interest,  and  Mrs.  Hemans  mournfully  felt  the 
change  from  her  mother's  home  in  a  long-loved  mountain- 
land  to  a  dwelling-place  among  strangers  on  a  scantily 
watered  table-land  in  a  midland  county.  Contrary  to 
expectation,  the  regiment  was  soon  disbanded,  and  Captain 
Hemans,  being  unemployed,  returned  with  his  wife  and 
their  firstborn  son  to  Bronwylfa,  where  they  took  up  their 
abode  under  the  roof  of  Mrs.  Browne.  With  devoted 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  411 

affection,  Mrs.  Hernans  fulfilled  a  mother's  duties,  pur- 
suing simultaneously  and  with  unabated  assiduity  her 
literary  avocations,  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  Latin 
language,  and  improving  her  mind  by  the  study  of  the 
best  authors.  Her  amiable  sister  has  remarked  *  upon  the 
unmethodical  way  in  which  Mrs.  Hemans  used  to  surround 
herself  with  books  in  different  languages  and  on  different 
subjects,  while,  nevertheless,  the  various  stores  of  know- 
ledge they  supplied  found  clear  and  orderly  arrangement 
in  her  mind.  Probably,  if  the  observer  had  shared  those 
studies,  the  mystery  would  have  been  solved  by  the  fact, 
that  through  many  different  books  the  poetess  was  either 
pursuing  and  collecting  the  scattered  parts  of  one  series  of 
ideas  or  tracing  out  parallels.  Many  volumes  of  extracts 
and  transcribed  passages  show  how  industriously  she 
worked  during  this  period. 

Neither  the  ' Memoir,'  the  'Memorials,' nor  any  other 
biographical  notices  which  the  present  writer  has  been 
able  to  consult,  give  the  precise  dates  of  the  next  series  of 
publications,  nor  can  those  dates  be  always  correctly  in- 
ferred from  internal  evidence  or  incidental  circumstances. 
Lacking  the  opportunity  of  searching  out  the  first  editions, 
she  has  therefore  endeavoured  to  approximate  as  closely  as 
possible  to  a  chronological  arrangement,  principally  under 
the  guidance  of  *  The  Works/  in  seven  volumes.t 

In  1816  Mrs.  Hemans  published  '  The  Restoration  of  the 
Works  of  Art  to  Italy.'  In  this  poem  her  style  is  calm, 
dignified,  symmetrical,  and  polished  as  the  Grecian  sculp- 
ture which  forms  its  theme.  No  juvenile  crudities  or 
discrepancies  disfigure  the  composition  ;  knowledge,  taste, 
and  talent  imbue  every  line,  and  towards  the  close  a 
courageous  outburst  of  genuine  eloquence  announces  the 
yet  higher  objects  of  Christian  art. 

*  '  Memoir,'  pp.  26,  27.  t  '  Blackwood's  Edinburgh,'  1857. 


412         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

A  brief  note  to  page  26  of  the  *  Memoir'  mentions  that 
"some  time  before"  the  marriage  of  Mrs.  Hemans  her 
father  had  "again  engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits,  and 
gone  out  to  Quebec,  where  he  died."  No  mention  is  made 
of  the  time  when  her  youngest  brother  Claude  went  to 
Canada,  nor  of  the  time  when  her  sister  left  home  to  reside 
and  travel  with  a  friendly  peeress. 

'  Modern  Greece '  was  her  next  production.  It  bears 
more  distinctly  than  any  of  her  former  ones  the  stamp  of 
originality ;  the  collected  ore  has  been  thoroughly  fused  in 
her  own  crucible,  and  she  has  coined  it,  instead  of  merely 
polishing  and  stringing  into  ornaments  the  pieces  she  had 
found.  Genius,  guided  by  exquisite  taste,  is  the  unques- 
tionable characteristic  of  this  beautiful  poem.  Though 
breathing  over  the  heroic  remembrances  of  Greece,  the 
enhancement  of  luxurious  scenery  in  her  descriptions,  and 
of  delightful  music  in  her  versification,  she  is  never  so  far 
carried  away  by  the  appropriate  sentiment  of  the  subject 
as  to  interrupt  the  clear  stream  of  truthful  thought,  which 
flows  below  the  overshadowing  imagery  and  now  and  then 
flashes  out.  The  manner  in  which  she  has  envisaged  the 
modern  scene,  traced  its  most  striking  features,  recalled 
departed  times,  and  thrown  the  pure  light  of  her  fine 
imagination  over  all,  incites  in  the  reader  an  emotion  of 
glowing  acknowledgment  that  the  poetess  is  worthy  of  her 
theme.  The  concluding  stanzas  are  unsatisfactory,  because 
they  predict  for  Britain  an  Athenian  excellence  in  art  for 
which  her  nature,  akin  to  that  of  Home,  has  proved  from 
generation  to  generation  unfit ;  and  because,  looking  for- 
ward to  Britain's  final  traces  upon  earth,  they  foreshow 
mere  material  and  sculptural  remains,  instead  of  moral 
and  spiritual  monuments. 

The  *  Miscellaneous  Poems,'  beginning  with  '  Lines 
written  in  a  Hermitage,'  and  ending  with  *  Stanzas  on 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  4L3 

tlio  Death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte/  written  Nov.  23, 
1817,  seem  to  have  been  partly  fugitives  collected  from 
magazines,  and  some  other  pieces  which  assisted  in  filling 
up  the  volume  of  *  Translations  from  Camoens,'  &c. 
'Evening  among  the  Alps'  is  an  example  of  Mrs.  Hemans's 
power  of  realising  and  describing  an  unseen  landscape. 
The  '  Dirge  of  a  Child  '  is  plaintive ;  the  '  Monody  on  the 
Princess,'  pathetic.  The  other  poems  are  pleasing,  but 
not  of  durable  texture. 

In  1818  she  published  her  '  Translations  from  Camoens 
and  Other  Poets,'  which  astonished  the  'Quarterly  Review' 
by  the  extensive  acquaintance  with  languages  and  books 
of  which  they  bear  evidence.  The  elegant  facility  of  their 
execution  is  also  admirable.  The  '  Basvigliana '  of  Monti 
exhibits  no  peculiar  excellence  of  rendering.  The  passages 
from  the  '  Caius  Gracchus  '  of  the  same  poet  were  not  in 
themselves  worthy  of  her  pen.  The  scenes  from  the 
'  Alcestis '  of  Alfieri  are  pathetic,  though  the  style  forms 
in  its  plainness  a  strong  contrast  to  her  natural  floweri- 
ness,  and,  either  unintentionally  or  intentionally,  memory 
has  led  her  to  imitate  the  diction  and  cadence  of  Potter  in 
his  translation  of  the  '  Alcestis '  of  Euripides.  Anything 
awkward  or  ungrammatical  from  Mrs.  Hemans  is  so  rare 
and  extraordinary,  that  a  combination  of  two  such  anoma- 
lies must  not  pass  unnoticed  in  this  translation  from 
Alfieri : — 

"  The  prey 

Is  ready,  nor  is  wholly  worthless  him 
For  whom  'tis  freely  offered." 

The  scenes  from  the  '  Carmagnola '  of  Manzoni  are  finely 
done,  and  the  critical  remarks  interspersed  do  credit  to  her 
discriminating  judgment.  The  '  Patriotic  Effusions  of  the 
Italian  Poets,*"  and  the  remarks  which  introduce  them,  are 
not  above  mediocrity,  though  a  few  very  graceful  lines 
vindicate  the  choice  and  the  skill  of  Mrs.  Hemans. 


414  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

In  the  year  1818  Captain  Hemans,  without  any  precon- 
certed plan  of  separation,  left  his  wife  and  children  at 
Bronwylfa  and  went  to  Kome,  continuing  to  correspond 
with  her  occasionally  when  she  consulted  him  concerning 
the  education  and  welfare  of  their  children — five  sons, 
whose  care  and  charge  devolved  on  her. 

That  Hunterian  dissector  of  human  nature,  John  Foster, 
towards  the  close  of  the  First  Letter  in  his  '  Essay  on  the 
Application  of  the  Epithet  Komantic,'  seems  almost  to 
have  foreshadowed  Mrs.  Hemans  and  her  husband,  when, 
drawing  a  strong  contrast  between  that  splendid  predomi- 
nance of  the  imaginative  faculty  which  precedes  a  generous 
and  active  expansion  of  the  feelings,  and  prepares  the 
mind  for  Divine  faith,  and  that  cold,  methodical  intelli- 
gence resembling  the  ramification  of  trees  in  winter, 
"destitute  of  all  the  green  soft  luxury  of  foliage,"  he 
adds : — "  The  aifections  which  may  exist  in  such  minds 
seem  to  have  a  bleak  abode,  somewhat  like  those  bare 
deserted  nests  which  you  have  often  seen  in  such  trees."  * 
Henceforth,  her  children  became  her  first  objects  in  life. 
To  promote  their  happiness,  to  cultivate  their  affections,  to 
form  their  moral  and  intellectual  characters,  and  to  procure 
for  them  every  possible  advantage,  was  the  object  of  her 
incessant  care  and  indefatigable  labour. 

In  1818  a  member  of  the  Highland  Society  offered 
prizes  for  the  three  best  poems  on  the  subject  of  Wallace's 
Invocation  to  Bruce  on  the  banks  of  the  Carron.  With 
little  expectation  of  success  against  multitudinous  com- 
petitors, Mrs.  Hemans  complied  with  the  request  of  a 
zealous  friend  in  Edinburgh,  and  sent  in  a  poem  which 
obtained  the  principal  prize  (50?.),  and  was  published  in 
'  Blackwood's  Magazine  '  for  September,  *1819.  It  is 
written  in  rhymed  octosyllabic  couplets,  like  the  poetical 

*  Edition,  1835,  p.  185. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  415 

romances  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  imitates  their  general 
style  with  feminine  elegance.  Its  landscapes,  however, 
are  vague,  its  personages  shadowy,  and  the  conclusion  is 
the  only  energetic  part  of  the  composition. 

The  *  Tales  and  Historic  Scenes'  were  published  in  1819. 
'  The  Abencerrage,'  which  stands  first  in  the  volume,  con- 
tains some  fine  descriptive  passages.  'The  Widow  of 
Crescentius '  embodies  a  great  deal  of  historical  knowledge. 
'  The  Last  Banquet  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra '  resembles 
an  Oxford  prize  poem.  'Alaric  in  Italy'  treats  of  the 
entrance  of  the  conquering  Goths  into  the  Imperial  City 
of  Rome,  and  of  the  burial  of  Alaric  in  the  bed  of  the 
river  Busentinus,  events  which  exercise  peculiar  power 
over  all  imaginative  students,  and  are  briefly  and  forcibly 
set  forth  by  Mrs.  Hemans.  '  The  Wife  of  Asdrubal '  is  less 
complete  and  less  vivid  in  narration  than  the  passage  of 
ancient  history  from  which  it  is  versified.  l  Heliodorus  in 
the  Temple '  is  prettily  paraphrased  from  the  Second  Book 
of  the  Maccabees,  without  acquiring  in  the  process  any 
additional  power  of  affecting  the  reader's  mind.  The 
'Night  Scene  in  Genoa'  is  so  strikingly  described  by 
Sismondi,  that  it  loses  instead  of  gaining  by  being  turned 
into  verse,  where,  but  for  the  extract  prefixed,  it  would 
appear  so  indistinct  and  incomplete  as  to  be  scarcely 
assignable  to  its  place  in  history.  There  are,  nevertheless, 
a  few  good  lines  in  this  poem.  That  of  '  The  Troubadour 
and  Eichard  Coeur  de  Lion '  gives  the  old  tradition,  and  is 
chiefly  remarkable  for  that  most  unwonted  thing,  a  harsh 
and  dissonant  verse  from  the  lyre  of  Mrs.  Hemans.  In 
the  Troubadour's  Song  four  consecutive  lines  end  with  the 
sound  of  t,  perhaps  by  way  of  experiment : — 

"  The  hour  is  come,  the  stake  is  set, 

The  Soldan  cried  to  the  captive  knight, 
And  the  sons  of  the  prophet  in  throngs  are  met, 
To  gaze  on  the  fearful  sight." 


416  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Among  the  twisted 

"  Chains  that  tie 
The  hidden  soul  of  harmony," 

the  various  endings  of  lines  termed  by  French  gramma- 
rians "rimes  masculines  et  rimes  feminines,"  and  used 
in  alternate  couplets,  though  not  prescribed  by  the  rules  oi 
English  prosody,  are  often  advantageously  applied  by 
English  poets.  Their  use  in  the  stanza  of  four  lines  was 
also  well  known  to  Mrs.  Hemans,  and  the  above  quotation 
is  a  solitary  instance  of  counteraction  to  their  smoothness. 
'The  Fate  of  Conradin,'  the  last  of  the  series,  apart  from 
Sismondi's  narrative,  reads  well,  though  it  proves  insipid 
in  its  presence.  All  the  historical  incidents  here  selected 
for  paraphrase  by  Mrs.  Hemans  are  noble  and  affecting, 
but  unfortunately  they  are  usually  extracted  from  pages 
too  eloquent  to  leave  the  poet  any  reasonable  hope  of 
rivalling  their  force  or  enhancing  their  effect.  They  were, 
nevertheless,  well  received  by  the  public,  who  had  not  yet 
learned,  from  the  superior  excellence  of  her  subsequent 
productions,  to  be  fastidious  in  their  judgment. 

In  1819,  a  year  of  extraordinary  mental  fertility,  she 
also  wrote  '  The  Sceptic,'  a  didactic  poem,  in  which  her 
kind  and  almost  paternal  friend  and  counsellor,  Dr.  Lux- 
more,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  took  peculiar  interest.  It  was 
published  in  1820,  and  received  by  the  principal  public 
critics  not  merely  with  approbation,  but  with  respectful 
admiration.  The  language  is  rich  and  copious,  without 
being  ornate  or  redundant ;  the  treatment  of  the  subject 
is  clear  and  forcible,  full  of  feminine  delicacy  and  of 
earnest  and  tender  feeling.  The  Sceptic  is  assumed  to  be 
one  who  has  perversely  chosen  infidelity,  and  the  Christian 
faith  is  persuasively  urged  on  his  acceptance  on  the  sole 
plea  of  its  being  the  only  effectual  remedy  for  the  maladies, 
necessities,  and  sorrows  of  the  human  heart,  the  only  true 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  417 

source  of  human  hope  in  life  and  in  death.     One  of  tho 
similies  introduced  is  original,  true,  and  very  beautiful : — 

"  Hush,  fond  enthusiast !  still,  obscure,  and  lone, 
Yet  not  less  terrible  because  unknown, 
Is  the  last  hour  of  thousands  :  they  retire 
From  life's  thronged  paths  unnoticed  to  expire ; 
As  the  light  leaf,  whose  fall  to  ruin  bears 
Some  trembling  insect's  little  world  of  cares, 
Descends  in  silence,  while  around  waves  on 
The  mighty  forest,  reckless  what  is  gone, 
Such  is  man's  doom,  and  ere  an  hour  be  flown, 
Start  not  thou  trifler  !  such  may  be  thine  own  !  " 

The  paragraph  which  describes  village  devotion  is  like- 
wise beautiful,  and  so  is  the  concluding  one  of  the  poem, 
i\vhich  describes  a  mother  training  her  child  for  heaven, 
just  as  she  herself  had  been  trained,  and  was  then  en- 
deavouring to  train  her  sons. 

On  the  29th  of  January,  1820,  died  King  George  III., 
and  shortly  afterwards  Mrs.  Hemans  wrote  and  published 
a  Monody  on  the  occasion,  replete  with  woman's  own 
poetry,  affectionate  and  holy  memories,  softest  and  sweetest 
reflections  and  feelings,  all  breathed  in  flute-like  strains  of 
all  extenuating  and  heart-soothing  eloquence. 

In  the  year  1820,  Mrs.  Hemans  became  an  occasional 
contributor  to  '  The  Edinburgh  Monthly  Magazine,'  then 
edited  by  the  Eev.  Robert  Morehead.  About  the  same 
period  she  entered  into  an  arrangement  with  Mr.  John 
Parry,  Bardd  Alaw,  to  write  English  words  to  his  selection 
of  Welsh  Melodies. 

Reginald  Heber,  rector  of  Hodnet,  who  had  married,  in 
the  year  1809,  the  youngest  daughter  of  Dr.  Shipley, 
dean  of  St.  Asaph,  was  in  the  habit  of  staying  frequently 
at  Bodryddan,  with  his  father-in-law,  and,  in  the  spring  of 
1820,  became  personally  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Hemans, 
whose  genius  and  acquirements  excited  his  liveliest  in- 
terest, and  whose  ingenuous  and  noble  character  secured 

2  E 


418  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND 

liis  friendship.  Looking  up  to  him  with  delighted  admira- 
tion, experiencing  from  his  conversation  a  joy  akin  to  that 
of  first  perusing  a  new  and  original  book,  and  encouraged 
by  his  benignity,  she  freely  imparted  to  him  her  literary 
projects,  and  showed  him  the  manuscripts  upon  which  she 
was  working.  On  her  poem,  entitled  l  Superstition  and 
Revelation/  he  drew  up  a  paper  of  suggestions,  proposing 
the  interpolation  between  the  existing  stanzas,  of  many 
others  illustrating  more  at  large  the  various  forms  of 
idolatry  in  the  ancient  Gentile  world,  and  a  supplemen- 
tary close,  narrating  the  return  of  the  Jews  to  Palestine  ; 
proposing  also  the  construction  of  two  additional  cantoes; 
the  second  to  close  with  the  fall  of  Pagan  Rome  ;  and  the 
third  and  last  with  an  anticipation  of  the  complete  triumph 
of  Christianity.  Thus  amplified,  the  magnitude  of  the 
undertaking  seems  to  have  overawed  her  mind,  and 
deterred  her  from  making  any  further  efforts  for  its  com- 
pletion. The  poem  was  laid  aside  for  many  years,  and  at 
last  posthumously  published  as  a  fragment.  The  stanza 
in  which  it  is  composed  is  that  most  musical,  flexible,  and 
expressive  of  Italian  measures  used  by  Spenser  in  his 
'  Muiopotmos.'  The  interest  felt  by  Heber  sufficiently  attests 
the  intrinsic  merits  of  '  Superstition  and  Revelation.' 

In  October,  1820,  Mrs.  Hemans  paid  a  visit  of  some 
weeks  to  her  friends  at  Wavertree  Lodge,  near  Liverpool, 
the  seat  of  Mr.  Henry  Park.  Writing  from  thence,  she 
says,  in  a  letter  to  her  sister : — "  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
much  I  have  enjoyed  the  novelty  of  all  the  objects  about 
me.  The  pastoral  seclusion  and  tranquillity  of  the  life  I 
have  led  for  the  last  seven  or  eight  years,  had  left  my 
mind  in  that  state  of  blissful  ignorance  particularly  cal- 
culated to  render  every  new  impression  an  agreeable  one, 
and  accordingly,  gas-lights,  steamboats,  Mr.  Kean,  casts 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  419 

from  the  Elgin  Marbles,  and  tropical  plants  in  the  Botanic 
Garden,  have  all,  in  turn,  been  the  objects  of  my  wondering 
admiration.  I  saw  Kean  in  two  characters,  Richard  III. 
and  Othello,  and  can  truly  say,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  never 
understood  Shakspeare  till  then.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  sort  of  electric  light  which  seemed  to  flash  across  my 
mind  from  the  bursts  of  power  he  displayed  in  several  of 
my  favourite  passages."  *  Referring  afterwards,  in  con- 
versation, to  Mr.  Kean,  she  said,  still  more  succinctly  and 
cleverly,  that  "  seeing  him  act  was  like  reading  Shak- 
speare by  flashes  of  lightning."  t 

The  Eoyal  Society  of  Literature  having  offered  a  prize 
for  the  best  poem  on  the  subject  of  Dartmoor,  Mrs.  Hemans 
was  encouraged  to  compete  for  it;  and  in  June,  1821, 
the  prize  was  awarded  to  her.  Besides  the  gratification, 
the  reputation,  and  the  gain  of  this  victory,  it  also  afforded 
her  the  pleasure  of  making  a  new  friend  in  Dr.  Croly,  the 
secretary,  whose  interest  in  her  was  strongly  excited  by 
the  perusal  of  the  poem.  '  Dartmoor '  well  deserved  its 
guerdon.  It  exhibits  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  local 
antiquities,  and  an  orderly  arrangement  of  the  scanty 
materials ;  for,  instead  of  wandering  there  at  her  own 
sweet  will,  up  and  down,  hither  and  thither  in  the  subject, 
she  follows  a  prescribed  path  with  methodical  exactness. 
It  is  brightened  with  several  good  similies,  and  many 
separate  lines  might  be  quoted  not  less  terse  and  full  of 
meaning  than  the-  concise  utterances  of  Pope  himself. 
The  fault  lies  in  the  vacancy  left  between  the  days 
of  the  Druids  and  the  days  of  Napoleon  the  Corsican. 
Historical  events  might  have  been  found  to  occupy  a 
part  of  that  wide  empty  space ;  and  even  an  account 
of  Dartmoor's  use  as  hunting-ground,  and  a  place 

*  '  Memoir,'  p.  42.  t  '  Memorials,'  vol.  i.,  p.  76. 

2  E  2 


420         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

of  Gipsey  encampments,  would  have  been  better  than 
nothing. 

Deeming  herself  a  naturalised  Welshwoman,  Mrs. 
Hemans  felt  much  gratified  by  being  elected,  in  1821,  an 
honorary  member  of  the  Royal  Cambrian  Institution,  in 
acknowledgment  of  the  services  she  was  rendering  to  the 
Principality,  by  studying  its  history  and  writing  words  to 
the  national  melodies. 

In  1821,  Mrs.  Hemans  and  all  her  warm-hearted  family, 
experienced  a  severe  affliction  in  the  death  of  her  brother, 
Claude-Scott  Browne,  the  play-fellow,  one  year  younger 
than  herself,  to  whom  many  of  her  earliest  verses  were 
addressed.  He  died  while  acting  as  Deputy- Assistant- 
Commissary-General  at  Kingstown,  in  Upper  Canada. 

In  the  course  of  the  same  year,  the  return  from  Vienna 
of  her  sister,  overflowing  with  admiration  for  the  artists, 
poets,  and  moral  philosophers  of  Germany,  and  laden 
with  presents  for  her  of  German  books  from  their  eldest 
brother,  Sir  Henry,  proved  the  means  of  enkindling  in 
Mrs.  Hemans  a  Teutonic  enthusiasm,  which  for  many 
subsequent  years  powerfully  influenced  her  studies  and 
her  compositions,  producing  among  many  immediate  and 
obvious  good  effects,  some  counteractive  ones,  which,  per- 
haps, when  trouble  came,  did  not  conduce  to  health  of 
heart. 

For  the  Eisteddfod,  or  meeting  of  Welsh  Bards,  held 
in  London  on  the  22nd  of  May,  1822,  Mrs.  Hemans 
composed  a  poetical  address  worthy  of  herself  and  of  the 
subject.  Every  line  of  it  is  spirited  and  appropriate,  and 
one  passage  more  especially  exemplifies  the  eloquence 
which  it  eulogizes : — 

"  Well  might  their  lays  be  lofty  ;  soaring  thought 
From  nature's  presence  tenfold  grandeur  caught : 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  421 

Well  nii^lit  bold  tYeedoiu'.s  soul  pervade  the  strains 

Which  startled  eagles  IVoiu  their  loiio  domains, 

And  like  a  l>n-e/e  in  ehaiuless  triumph  went 

Up  through  tin-  blue  resounding  firmament. 

Whence  caim:  the  echoes  to  those  numbers  high? 

T\\as  from  the  battle-fields  of  days  gone  by, 

And  from  the  toinbs  of  heroes  laid  to  rest 

Witli  their  good  swords  upon  the  mountain's  breast ; 

And  from  the  watch-towers  on  the  heights  of  snow 

Severed  by  cloud  and  storm  from  all  below ; 

And  the  turf-mounds,  once  girt  by  ruddy  spenrs, 

And  the  rock-altars  of  departed  years. 

Thence,  deeply  mingling  with  the  torrent's  roar, 

The  winds  a  thousand  wild  responses  bore  ; 

And  the  green  land  whose  every  vale  and  glen 

Doth  shrine  the  memory  of  heroic  men, 

On  all  her  hills  awakening  to  rejoice, 

Sent  forth  proud  answers  to  her  children's  voice." 

About  this  period,  the  eldest  brother  of  Mrs.  Hemans 
having  purchased  Bronwylfa  and  other  property  in  the 
neighbourhood,  had  the  house  enlarged  and  improved ;  and 
without  displacing  his  mother  and  her  family,  came  with 
his  young  wife,  his  warlike  spoils  and  trophies  won  in  a 
score  of  battles  in  various  parts  of  the  globe,  and  all  his 
military  and  knightly  honours  and  reminiscences,  to  enjoy 
a  veteran's  rest  beneath  the  same  roof. 

In  1822,  Mr.  John  Parry,  Bardd  Alaw,  published  the 
first  volume  of  his  '  Welsh  Melodies,'  with  English  words 
by  Mrs.  Hemans.*  Her  *  Harp  of  Wales '  is  sweetly 
plaintive,  and  manifests  a  mild  enthusiasm  which  serves 
as  a  popular  substitute  for  the  sterner  pathos  of  the  true 
bardic  "  awen."  In  the  *  Druid  Chorus,  on  the  Landing  of 
the  Romans,'  suavity  and  elegance  mar  the  force  of  denun- 
ciation. In  'The  Green  Isles  of  Ocean'  her  gentle  and 
melodious  spirit  finds  congenial  exercise.  *  The  Sea-song 
of  Gafran  '  enters  well  into  the  imaginary  position  of  the 
singers  voyaging  on  the  deep  to  seek  the  island  homes  of 

*  See  the  'Literary  Remains  of  the  Ilev.  Thorna*  Trice,  ('arnliuanawe, 
\\ith  a  Memoir  of  his  Lite,'  by  Jane  Williams!,  vol.  ii..  chap,  xxv.,  p.  401. 


422  .LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  souls  of  their  departed  priests ;  and  to  the  ear  it  is 
most  musical  even  without  its  accompaniment.  *  The 
Hirlas  Horn  '  gives  an  abridged  and  refined  version  of  the 
old  Welsh  '  Hirlas'  of  Owen  Cyfeiliog.  Of  «  The  Hall  of 
Cynddylan,'  the  versification  alone  is  new :  Owen's  trans- 
lation of  the  Heroic  Elegy  of  Lly  warch  Hen,  most  honestly 
printed  in  the  margin,  suggests  every  idea  which  the  song 
contains.  *  The  Lament  of  Llywarch  Hen,'  derived  through 
the  same  medium  from  the  same  native  source,  suits 
exactly  the  elegiac  turn  of  Mrs.  Hemans's  mind,  which 
enables  her  to  give  a  true  though  diffuse  version  of  this 
pathetic  and  beautiful  poem.  '  Gruffydd's  Feast '  is  imi- 
tated from  the  Welsh.  *  The  Cambrian  in  America ' 
breathes  all  an  exile's  tender  feeling  for  his  native  land. 

*  The  Fair  Isle '  catches  happily  the  spirit  of  the  air  to 
which  it  was  written.    *  Taliesin's  Prophecy  '  is  paraphrased 
with  great  dignity,  and  *  Owen  Glyndwr's  War-song  '  also 
gives  a  true  though  softened  echo  of  the  old  bardic  strain. 

*  Prince   Madoc's    Farewell '   is    appropriate,    and    so   is 
'  Caswallon's    Triumph.'      <  Howel's   Song '   might,   with 
advantage,  have  retained  more  of  Howel's  own  thoughts. 
The  song  entitled  'The  Mountain  Fires,'  is  very  pretty 
and  picturesque.     '  Eryri  Wen  '  is  spoiled  by  the  use  of 
one  unsuitable  epithet,  that  of  "  monarch  hill ;  "  applying 
to  the  highest  of  the  Welsh  mountains  a  term  strictly 
limited  by  the  people  to  an  inferior  class  of  heights  ;  the 
Cymric  use  of  words  being  so  precisely  assigned  and  gra- 
duated, that  not  only  mountains,  hills,  and  mounds  have 
their   several   appellations,    but  the  different  forms  and 
attributes  belonging  to  each  variety  of  each  kind  is  speci- 
fically indicated  by  the  name.     '  The  Chant  of  the  Bards, 
before  their  Massacre  by  King  Edward  I.,'  is  an  insipid 
celebration  of  a  figment,  and  <  The  Dying  Bard's  Prophecy ' 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         423 

is  little  better.  *  The  Rock  of  Cader  Idris '  is  wonderfully 
fine.  Poets,  or  persons  who  can  feel  what  is  poetical  in 
nature,  who  have  climbed  the  precipitous  steeps,  and  stood 
on  the  summit  of  this  magnificent  mountain,  amid  the 
whirl  of  encompassing  mists,  to  watch  the  glorious  appear- 
ing of  sun-rise,  will  duly  appreciate  this  poem,  the  last  and 
the  best  of  a  series  praiseworthy  alike  for  correct  know- 
ledge of  the  national  history  and  character,  for  perfect 
accordance  with  the  melodies  to  which  they  were  written, 
and  for  being,  in  every  various  inflection  of  their  verse, 
most  musical.  They  formed  the  basis  of  her  high  reputa- 
tion as  a  song-writer,  and  widened  the  scope  of  her  influ- 
ence in  the  world. 

In  the  year  1823,  Mrs.  Hemans  became  a  contributor  to 
'  The  New  Monthly  Magazine/  which  was  then  edited  by 
Campbell,  the  poet.  In  the  summer  of  the  same  year  she 
published  *  The  Siege  of  Valencia,  and  other  Poems.'  In 
this  drama  Mrs.  Hemans  ventures  not  only  upon  the  con- 
struction of  a  plot,  but  also  upon  the  invention  of  imaginary 
personages,  and  the  selection  of  their  sphere  of  action. 
The  opening  ballad  is  too  long  ;  the  secret  grief  of  Zimena 
for  her  lover's  death  might  have  been  better  told  in  half 
the  number  of  words.  The  second  scene  is  also  too  long ; 
the  latter  part  of  it  consists  of  a  dialogue  between  Elmina 
the  heroine  and  Hernandez  a  priest,  and  is  distinguished 
by  passages  of  high  poetic  merit,  and  by  an  ill-managed 
division  and  counteraction  of  scenic  interest.  No  one  who 
has  either  felt  or  witnessed  the  emotion  of  passionate 
anxiety  can  be  ignorant  that  a  past  and  narrated  sorrow 
offers  a  cold,  repelling,  and  abhorrent  contrast  to  the 
active,  concentrated,  and  absorbing  presence  of  such  agony. 
Yet  here  the  mind  of  Elmina,  bent  on  one  purpose,  full  of 
devices  for  its  accomplishment,  seeing  and  feeling  nothing 


424  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

but  the  peril  of  her  children,  and  the  necessity  of  averting 
it,  is  unnaturally  interrupted  in  its  course  by  a  tedious  and 
vain  attempt  to  divide  the  reader's  sympathy  with  the 
old  griefs  of  a  fierce  ecclesiastic.  Subsiding  emotion  may 
be  soothed  by  narratives  of  kindred  trouble,  but,  on  the 
full-swelling  tide  of  effort,  in  the  face  of  a  dire  and  in- 
stantly impending  calamity,  the  dreary  frost  of  such  delay  is 
intolerable,  and  Elmina's  patience  under  it  preternatural. 

All  the  characters  of  this  piece  are  well  conceived  and 
well  sustained.  In  that  of  Elmina,  Mrs.  Hemans  seems 
to  have  embodied  her  idea  of  how  she  herself  would  have 
felt  and  acted  under  similar  trials :  there  is  in  it  such  an 
intensity  of  life  and  love,  such  majesty,  such  tenderness, 
such  sad  reality,  that  the  most  vivid  imagination  must  have 
failed  in  creating  it  without  the  concurrent  wear  and  tear 
of  a  fervid  heart.  The  terrible  conflict  of  Elmina  between 
maternal  instinct  on  one  side  and  conjugal  love  with 
chivalrous  honour  on  the  other,  her  temporary  subjection 
to  evil,  her  conscious  loss  of  moral  dignity  under  the 
crushing  pressure  of  temptation,  her  vacillation,  her  re- 
pentant recognition  of  the  purpose  of  affliction,  her  faith 
and  heroic  constancy  when  all  is  lost,  forms  one  of  the 
finest  word-pictures  ever  drawn  by  a  woman's  hand.  For 
such  originality  the  penalty  must  have  been  previously  paid 
in  tears. 

The  most  remarkable  of  the  '  Other  Poems '  in  the  same 
volume  are  '  The  Voice  of  Spring,'  by  which  she  inau- 
gurated at  once  into  public  favour  a  form  of  lyric  composi- 
tion peculiarly  her  own,  and  the  fine  national  ode,  entitled 
'  England's  Dead.' 

1 A  Tale  of  the  Secret  Tribunal '  has  more  freedom  in 

i 

its  flow,  more  vividness  in  its  descriptions,  and  more  ani- 
mation in  its  personages  than  her  ordinary  narratives. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  425 

Touches  of  deep  feeling,  evidently  drawn  from  personal 
experu'iico,  and  an  augmenting  sense  of  mental  power 
may  also  be  reckoned  among  its  characteristics.  The  story 
runs  no  rival  race  with  able  historic  statements,  and  con- 
sequently challenges  no  disparaging  comparison.  The  in- 
troductory scene,  and  that  of  the  father  and  daughter  in 
the  forest  are  very  fine.  The  religious  expositions  are 
cloudy,  and  the  style  imitates,  sometimes  too  closely,  the 
rhymed  romances  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  This  poem  was 
not  published  until  after  the  death  of  the  authoress. 

*  The  Caravan  in  the  Deserts '  is  a  specimen  of  the 
appropriating  facility  with  which  Mrs.  Hemans  caught 
from  the  records  of  travellers  the  most  salient  features  and 
attributes  of  countries  she  had  never  seen,  expatiated  on 
the  loveliness  of  the  lovely  with  luxuriating  delight,  and 
threw  over  the  horrors  of  the  arid  desert's  glare  a  soft  and 
shadowy  fascination.  Hers  is  to  scenes  of  terror  a  sort 
of  angel-guidance  ;  harmony,  light,  and  beauty  float  around 
it.  '  Marius  among  the  Hums  of  Carthage '  is  full  of 
graceful,  though  not  vigorous,  poetry.  The  *  Song  founded 
on  an  Arabian  Anecdote,'  and  the  translation  of  Tiek's 
'  Alp-horn  Song '  are  scarcely  worthy  of  her. 

The  translations  from  Horace  transfuse  so  happily  the 
exact  ideas  and  the  concise  elegance  of  the  originals  that 
ii-Nv  English  versions  will  bear  to  be  compared  with  them. 
The  third  verse  of  the  '  Ode  to  Dellius'  is  wonderfully-well 
done : — 

"  Qua  pinus  ingens  albaque  populus 
Umbram  hospitalem  consociare  amant 
I !;i 1 1 1 is  et  obliquo  laborat 
Lyinpha  fugax  trepidare  rivo." 

"  Haunts  where  the  silvery  poplar  boughs 
Love  with  the  pine's  to  blend  on  high, 
And  some  clear  fountain  brightly  flows 
In  graceful  windings  by." 


426  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

*  The  Cross  of  the  South'  and  '  The  Sleeper  on  Marathon' 
are  but  elegant  and  harmonious  versifications  of  common- 
place ideas.  The  verses  on  several  occasions  to  Miss 
F.  A.  L.  are  replete  with  sweetness  and  friendly  sympathy  ; 
and  the  last  set,  to  the  same,  '  On  the  Death  of  her 
Mother/  are  likewise  remarkable  for  elegiac  tenderness 
and  distinctive  suitability. 

The  translations  from  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  from  San- 
nazaro,  and  from  Camoens,  have  no  great  merit.  'The 
Maremma'  is  languid  even  to  tediousness.  'A  Tale  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century'  is  rather  a  reverie  than  a  composi- 
tion ;  the  exordium  melodious  as  if  made  to  music,  graphic 
as  if  drawn  from  sight,  indicates  a  fine  imagination  in 
placid  exercise :  but  in  the  story,  order,  conciseness,  and 
strength,  being  utterly  wanting,  no  occasional  excellence 
of  description  or  sentiment  can  be  accepted  as  an  adequate 
compensation  for  the  lax  and  incoherent  state  of  the 
poetic  materials. 

1  The  Last  Constantine '  is  a  rare  combination  of  grandeur 
and  pathos,  beauty  and  melody.  If  the  concentrated 
martial  energy  of  the  iron  empire's  last  expiring  throes 
be  feebly  represented  in  this  poem,  yet  is  it  something 
more  than  a  mere  woman's  ordinary  funeral  song,  resem- 
bling rather — 

"  An  angel  watcher's  long  and  sad  farewell, 
The  requiem  of  a  faith's  departing  sway, 
A  throne,  a  nation's  dirge,  a  wail  for  earth's  decay." 

The 'Greek  Songs,'  'Elysium,'  'The  Funeral  Genius/ 
'  The  Tombs  of  Platan,'  and  '  The  View  from  Castri,'  are 
all  of  them  elaborately  elegant  and  essentially  Greek  in 
the  pictures  they  present,  the  fallen  glories  they  deplore, 
and  the  freedom  they  eulogize ;  but  they  do  not  equal 
many  of  her  other  compositions  on  similar  subjects. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         427 

*  The  Festal  Hour '  is  a  fine  though  anomalous  composi- 
tion,  catching  the  spirit  of  olden  times  and  widely-distant 
lands,  and  applying  the  lesson  drawn  from  thence  in  a 
tone  too  pompous  for  the  ears  of  modern  revellers.  '  The 
Battle  of  Morganten/  as  its  name  tells,  is  a  mere  para- 
phrase of  a  passage  from  Planta's  '  History  of  the  Helvetic 
Confederacy ; '  the  scenery  and  decorations  are,  however, 
very  good,  and  the  recital  is  unusually  animated. 

'  Sebastian  of  Portugal,  a  Dramatic  Fragment,'  is  a  story 
told  in  excellent  blank  verse,  and  with  the  accompaniment 
of  such  sweet  poetry,  five,  or  at  least  three  acts  might  have 
been  read  complacently,  although  from  the  very  first  open- 
ing little  hope  can  be  cherished  of  proper  development. 
The  King  and  his  nominally-wise  counsellor  Gonzalez 
return  to  Lisbon  from  long  captivity  in  Africa,  apparently 
without  any  notion  of  the  events  which  have  taken  place 
during  their  absence,  or  any  consequent  plan  of  future 
conduct.  Events  drift  slowly,  like  scattered  waifs  and 
strays  on  still  waters  touched  only  by  the  casual  wind, 
and  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  scene,  the  whole  drama 
conies  to  an  untimely  end,  dying  out  from  mere  inanity. 

The  *  Ode  on  the  Death  of  King  Sebastian  of  Portugal 
and  liis  Army  in  Africa/  a  translation  from  Herrera,  was 
probably  the  unlucky  provocative  of  the  foregoing  attempt 
at  a  tragedy. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1823,  Mrs.  Hemans  contributed 
*  Belshazzar's  Feast,' — as  good  a  poem  on  the  subject  as 
could  probably  have  been  produced  by  any  modern  poet — 
to  a  '  Collection  of  Poems  from  Living  Authors/  projected 
and  edited  by  Joanna  Baillie  for  a  charitable  purpose.  In 
a  curtailed  form,  this  paraphrase  was  reprinted  with  the 
1  Siege  of  Valencia.'  The  '  Songs  of  the  Cid'  belong  like- 


428  LITERAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

wise  to  this  period,  and  were  first  published  with  the 
poems  above  enumerated.  They  have  caught  the  true 
spirit  of  Spanish  chivalry,  and  are  perfect  in  their  kind. 
The  '  Lines  on  a  Flower  from  the  Field  of  Grutli,'  and 
<  On  a  Leaf  from  the  Tomb  of  Virgil,'  and  <  The  Chieftain's 
Song '  are  fine.  ( The  League  of  the  Alps '  is  poetically 
told. 

Having  shown  the  manuscript  of  her  tragedy,  finally 
known  as  'The  Vespers  of  Palermo/  to  the  rector  of 
Hodnet,  she  was  led,  in  deference  to  his  opinion  and  to 
that  of  Dean  Milman,  to  curtail,  modify,  and  finish  it  with 
a  view  to  representation  on  the  stage.  On  the  22nd  of 
April,  1823,  Keginald  Heber  took  his  final  leave  of  Hodnet, 
and,  having  been  consecrated  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  embarked 
on  the  16th  of  the  following  June  for  India,  to  enter  upon 
a  course  of  arduous  duties  with  almost  apostolic  zeal. 
Dean  Milman  took  charge  of  the  tragedy,  and,  after  many 
difficulties  and  delays,  procured  its  acceptance  at  Covent 
Garden  Theatre,  where  Mr.  Charles  Kemble  and  his  tragic 
staff  unanimously  agreed  in  expecting  a  favourable  recep- 
tion for  it;  Mr.  Murray,  the  publisher,  gave  her  two 
hundred  guineas  for  the  copyright,  and  the  harassing 
fluctuations  of  hope  and  fear  attendant  on  the  stimulated 
ambition  of  public  triumph  and  the  dreaded  alternative 
of  public  contempt,  subsiding  under  the  assurances  of 
competent  advisers,  had  almost  sunk  to  complacent  rest, 
when,  on  the  night  of  the  12th  of  December,  1823,  the 
tragedy  of  '  The  Vespers  of  Palermo '  was  produced,  sus- 
tained by  the  ablest  efforts  of  Charles  Kemble  and 
Mr.  Young,  with  an  effect  so  neutralised  by  the  bad  acting 
and  ridiculous  intonation  of  Miss  Kelly,  that  the  perform- 
ance virtually  amounted  to  a  complete  failure. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  429 

This  tragedy  is  full  of  true  poetry;  every  line  is  in 
musical  cadence,  every  sentence  of  half-a-dozen  lines  con- 
tains some  fine  sentiment  or  beautiful  description,  many 
of  the  situations  are  striking,  the  plot  is  well  arranged 
and  well  developed,  ard  there  is  no  conspicuous  fault  ex- 
cepting a  redundant  wealth  of  diction. 

The  death  of  Sir  Henry  Browne's  young  wife  over- 
shadowed both  himself  and  his  family  with  sorrow.  Mrs. 
Hemans  mourned  her  with  a  soft  and  tender  melancholy, 
and,  having  then  for  the  first  time  looked  on  death,  gained 
from  the  sad  occasion  one  of  time's  most  impressive  lessons. 
The  '  Dirge,'  in  the  third  volume  of  the  '  Works/  breathes 
the  wail  of  real  feeling : — 

"  For  there  is  hushed  on  earth 

A  voice  of  gladness  :  there  is  veiled  a  face, 
Whose  parting  leaves  a  dark  and  silent  place, 
By  the  once  joyous  hearth. 

A  smile  hath  passed,  which  filled  its  home  with  light, 
A  soul  whose  beauty  made  that  smile  so  bright." 

Through  the  zealous  intervention  of  Joanna  Baillie, 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  other  true  friends  of  fair  play  and 
genuine  poetry,  the  tragedy  of  '  The  Vespers  of  Palermo ' 
was  brought  upon  the  Edinburgh  stage,  on  the  night  of 
the  5th  of  April,  1824.  The  principal  characters  were  per- 
formed by  Vandenhoff,  Calcraft,  and  Mrs.  Henry  Siddons, 
and  the  success  of  the  piece  was  decidedly  good. 

About  this  time  Mrs.  Hemans,  anxious  to  put  in  practice 
the  lessons  she  had  derived  alike  from  the  strictures  of 
friendly  and  unfriendly  commentators,  occupied  herself  in 
writing  the  tragedy  of  *De  Chatillon,  or  the  Crusaders.' 
The  fair  copy  having  teen  unfortunately  lost,  lent  perhaps 
to  some  one  who  never  returned  it,  this  clever  and  wcll- 
wrought  drama,  after  lying  for  many  years  in  obscurity, 
had  at  last  the  disadvantage  of  being  posthumously  printed 


430  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND 

from  a  transcript  of  the  original  rough  draft.  In  this 
tragedy  occurs  the  song  of  'The  Captive  Knight.'  The 
words  Dr.  Johnson  might  have  praised,  for  their  clear  and 
noble  simplicity,  as  he  did  those  of  Monk  Lewis's  '  Alonzo 
and  Imogen;'  and,  in  combination  with  the  accompani- 
ment composed  by  her  sister,  the  song  well  deserves  the 
commendation  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  the  yet  higher 
praise  implied  by  the  fact  of  his  never  being  weary  of 
listening  to  it. 

To  run  to  her  mother  with  all  the  praises  she  received 
was  always  her  first  impulse,  and,  in  every  instance  of 
achieved  success,  to  communicate  the  joy-diffusing  tidings 
to  every  member  of  the  family,  verbally  if  at  hand,  and 
by  letter  if  absent,  was  a  necessary  preliminary  to  her 
recognition  of  personal  gratification  in  the  fact.  Until 
the  intelligence  had  gladdened  all  the  hearts  that  were 
dearest  to  her,  she  could  neither  feel  its  worth  nor  stop  to 
rejoice  in  it.  After  winning,  year  by  year,  fresh  guerdons 
of  applause  for  purity  of  thought,  elegance  of  diction,  and 
melody  of  verse,  to  be  told  emphatically  and  unanimously 
by  the  ablest  critics  in  the  land,  that  she  had  written  ex- 
cellently well,  shaped,  for  her  original  mode  of  appre- 
hending the  analogies  of  natural  objects  with  human 
fee] ings,  an  original  style  of  lyric  utterance,  and  taken  a 
tenacious  hold  upon  the  popular  heart,  could  not  but  touch 
her  very  deeply ;  such  testimony  being  made  visible,  and 
tangible,  and  audible,  not  merely  in  the  cold  formality  of 
print  but  in  the  tearful  smiles  of  beloved  faces,  in  the 
friendly  eyes,  and  hands,  and  tones  of  pilgrim-visitors,  in 
multitudes  of  eulogistic  letters,  and  in  the  general  tribute 
of  deference  and  admiration  accorded  to  her  very  name, 
she  could  not  but  feel  soothed,  and  pleased,  and  en- 
couraged, thankful,  and  almost  happy.  It  was  rather  the 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  431 

voices  than  the  strain  which  gained  over  her  this  griH- 
jissuaging  and  care-suspending  charm,  and  the  force  of  this 
charm  was  now  augmented  by  the  lively  and  earnest  interest 
testified  by  her  children  in  all  she  wrote,  and  in  all  that 
friends  and  critics  at  home  and  abroad  said  of  all  that  she 
had  written.  When  a  prize  was  won,  her  exultation  acquired 
buoyancy  from  theirs ;  when  an  expected  award  was  with- 
held, the  bitterness  of  disappointment  lay  in  their  baffled 
confidence;  and  when  the  sanguine  anticipations  vainly 
guaranteed  by  a  Heber,  a  Milrnan,  and  a  Kemble  had 
failed,  the  stinging  pang  of  her  mortification  lay  in  the 
children's  knowledge  of  her  failure,  in  the  children's  know- 
ledge that  the  scribblers  of  the  daily  newspapers,  basely 
deeming  success  and  ill-success  to  be  synonyms  of  merit 
and  demerit,  had  ridiculed  a  work  of  genius  which  men  of 
genius  had  extolled.  One  of  the  most  touching  and  cha- 
racteristic anecdotes  in  her  '  Memoir '  is  that  which  relates 
her  bravely  going  to  the  bedsides  of  her  boys,  who  were 
all  lying  awake  waiting  for  a  triumph,  to  tell  them  the 
bad  news ;  and,  doubtless,  the  chief  joy  of  recovery  from 
this  discomfiture  consisted  in  the  renewal  of  their  trust. 

To  be  a  heroine  to  her  sons  was  a  form  of  ambition  well 
suited  to  her  character,  and  from  the  time  when  it  first 
arose  in  her  heart  the  great  world  seemed  like  a  camera 
projecting  its  diminished  shadows  pictorially  upon  her 
hearth,  and  among  them  she  watched  with  anxiety  the 
reflected  image  of  herself  thus  cast  before  eyes  whose 
approval  to  her  was  the  gladness  of  fame. 

The  faculty  of  fancy,  as  contradistinguished  from  that 
of  imagination,  alike  by  inherent  qualities  and  by  the 
sphere  of  action,  was  possessed  by  Mrs.  Hemans  in  all  its 
bright  acuteness,  and  kept  well  furbished  by  constant  use. 
She  never  showed  it  to  the  public :  the  public  found  no 


432  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

raillery,  no  drollery,  no  comical  allusion  in  her  poetry,  and 
dreamed  not  that  she  could  in  social  life  adroitly  handle 
the  foils  and  battledores  of  wit,  flashing  out  sparkling  bril- 
liancy, and  keeping  up  buoyant  emulation.  Yet  her  con- 
versation and  her  letters,  flowing  with  the  tide  of  circum- 
stance, often  tossed  its  varied  matter  with  all  the  wayward 
and  grotesque  whimsicality  of  an  irresistibly  mirth-stirring 
humourist. 

Catching  the  spirit  of  the  social,  and  more  especially  of 
the  domestic  hour,  or  under  an  hilarious  impulse,  she 
would,  for  the  momentary  entertainment  of  her  com- 
panions, do  even  more  than  talk  "delicious  nonsense," 
she  would  write  whole  sheets  of  ludicrous  verses,  full  of 
learning  and  ingenuity,  and  redolent  of  real  fun,  never 
caring  for  their  preservation  when  once  they  had  fulfilled 
their  transient  purpose.  / 

Many  minds  abundantly  endowed  with  fancy  are  desti- 
tute of  imagination  in  its  highest  and  Wordsworthian 
sense,  but  few  which  possess  the  higher  faculty  are  without 
the  lower,  though  the  poetical  philosopher  of  Rydal  Mount 
falls  himself  among  the  notable  exceptions  to  this  sule. 
While  her  own  powers  of  wit  and  satire  were  repressed  by 
Mrs.  Hemans  as  unworthy  of  a  place  among  grave  and 
noble  mental  exercises,  they  undoubtedly  retained  a  very 
extensive  and  beneficial  influence  over  the  discipline  of 
her  taste,  and  prevented  elegance  and  refinement  from 
ever  approaching  the  borders  of  sentimental  and  fastidious 
absurdity. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1824,  she  first  placed  her 
eldest  boy,  Arthur,  at  a  boarding-school  at  Bangor.  On 
this  occasion  she  accompanied  him  herself  to  the  master's 
house,  and  subsequently  spent  several  weeks  with  friends 
in  the  neighbourhood,  in  order  to  assure  herself,  by  re- 


LITERACY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  433 

visits,  of  his  comfort  and  probable  welfare.  In 
tins  new  trial  of  first  parting  with  a  child  she  suffered  so 
;i cutely  as  to  resolve  that  rather  than  be  deprived  one  after 
another  of  the  solace  of  her  children's  society,  she  would 
give  up  Wales  and  all  her  most  cherished  haunts  and 
habits,  and  make  a  home  for  them  near  their  future  place 
of  study,  wherever  circumstances  might  direct  that  to  be. 

Besides  the  local  aid  which  she  procured  for  her  little 
students,  she  personally  gave  the  most  assiduous  attention 
to  their  home  instruction ;  it  took  precedence  even  of  the 
literary  toil  into  which,  for  their  sakes,  her  poetic  prompt- 
ings were  goaded;  and  when  her  boys  ran  out  into  the 
open  air  to  play,  delighting  in  their  delight,  she  would 
either  assist  in  flying  their  kites,  spinning  their  tops,  and 
keeping  up  their  shuttlecocks,  or  sitting  in  some  grassy 
and  well-wooded  nook  or  dingle,  conscious  of  their  trundling 
hoops  and  nimble  feet  around  her,  she  would  indulge  in 
reading  some  congenial  book,  or  quietly  meditating  upon 
Nature's  great  and  minute  vastness  would  gather  in  rich 
stores  of  convertible  treasure. 


2  P 


434         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

A.D.  1835.— PAKT  II. 

THE  POETESSES. 
Felicia-Dorothea  Hemans. 


"  Oh,  heirs  of  genius !  learn 
From  the  sky's  bird  your  way  !     No  joy  may  fill 
Your  hearts,  no  gift  of  holy  strength  be  won 
To  bless  your  songs,  ye  children  of  the  sun, 
Save  by  the  unswerving  flight,  upward,  and  upward  still !"  * 


FELICIA-DOROTHEA  HEMANS. 

A  PASSAGE  in  Blanco  White's  '  Letters  from  Spain,  by  Don 
Leucadio  Doblado,'  published  in  « Blackwood's  Magazine,' 
first  suggested  to  her  mind  the  idea  of  •'  The  Forest  Sanc- 
tuary.' She  began  writing  this  poem  in  the  autumn  of 
1824,  and  as  she  completed  the  component  parts,  used  to 
bring  them  of  an  evening  to  the  fireside  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  assembled  family  party,  and  to  receive  the 
criticisms  of  her  affectionate  audience.  The  key-note  of 
her  strain  was  pitched  in  sympathy  with  their  feelings ; 
every  sentence,  phrase,  and  epithet,  and  all  the  meanings, 
and  inflections,  and  gradations  of  meaning,  conveyed  by 
each  and  all  have  evidently  been  subjected  to  attentive 
examination ;  and  the  judgment  of  the  poetess,  warmed 
and  sharpened  by  friendly  collision,  as  a  knife  acquires 
fineness  of  edge  by  acting  and  bearing  weight  upon  oiled 

*  Mrs.  Hemans,  '  On  Watching  the  Flight  of  a  Skylark.' 


LITEKAi;V    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  1  :',."> 

leather,  has  subtilely  penetrated  and  wrought  out  every  part 
\\iih  a  minute  and  exquisite  finish,  and  given  to  the  whole 
an  extraordinary  completeness.  The  poem  conveys  an  im- 
pression of  having  been  written  in  sadness  ;  an  air  of  lan- 
guid and  subdued,  though  inextinguishable  enthusiasm 
pervades  it ;  all  nature  in  its  luxuriant  descriptions  seems 
to  suffer  the  summer  melancholy  of  a  hovering  thunder- 
storm ;  the  events  and  sentiments  accord  with  the  per- 
vading air ;  and  the  most  perfect  harmony  of  metre  and 
grammatical  construction  produces  a  rhythm  of  unsurpass- 
able, though  somewhat  monotonous  sweetness. 

In  the  spring  time  of  the  year  1825,  Mrs.  Browne,  with 
her  daughters,  and  the  children  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  removed 
from  Bronwylfa  to  Khyllon,  a  comfortable  house  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  distant,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river 
Clwyd,  and  in  full  sight,  from  the  windows,  of  their  former 
abode.  In  the  course  of  the  same  season,  Major-General 
Sir  Henry  Browne  brought  home  a  second  wife  to  Bron- 
wylfa ;  and  Lieutenant-Colonel,  then  Major  Browne,  re- 
turning with  his  wife  from  a  long  sojourn  in  Canada,  took 
up  his  residence  under  the  maternal  roof  at  Rhyllon. 
Mustering  thus  in  two  households  within  view,  all  her 
surviving  progeny,  her  daughter-in-law  and  grandchildren, 
Mrs.  Browne,  ever  placid  and  serene,  became  so  happy, 
and  so  thankfully  conscious  of  her  happiness,  that  only  a 
ehunge  to  Heaven  could  increase  it;  while  an  aggregate  of 
friendly  enjoyment  was  produced  among  the  members  of 
her  family,  which  rendered  the  next  few  months  the  hap- 
piest epoch  in  the  review  of  many  whose  lives  were  (here 
interwoven. 

The  welcome  which  Mrs.  Hemans's  poems  met  with 
beyond  the  Atlantic  was,  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  more 
general,  eager,  and  rapturous  than  in  Great  Britain.  A 

2  F  2 


436  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

correspondence  with  Dr.  Bancroft,  their  public  admirer 
and  eulogist,  first  informed  her  of  the  fact ;  and  in  1825, 
Professor  Norton,  of  Boston,  New  England,  introduced 
himself  to  her  by  a  written  offer  of  superintending  for  her 
benefit  the  publication  of  a  complete  American  edition  of 
her  works.  Had  she  chosen  to  emigrate,  and  to  enter 
upon  the  career  of  an  editor  and  authoress  in  America, 
arrangements  would  have  been  made  to  secure  her  pecu- 
niary prosperity. 

In  1826,  *  The  Forest  Sanctuary '  was  published  in  a 
volume  which  also  contained  the  '  Lays  of  Many  Lands,' 
and  a  collection  of  '  Miscellaneous  Pieces,'  reprinted  from 
the  Magazines  and  Annuals.  The  Lays  are  all  elegant, 
and  in  each  may  be  found  one  or  more  fine  stanzas,  but 
only  the  *  Greek  Funeral  Chant  or  Myriologue '  is  distin- 
guished among  them  for  extraordinary  beauty  and  pathos ; 
Mrs.  Hemans's  heart  having  supplied  the  mother,  the  be- 
trothed bride,  and  the  sister  of  the  slain  hero  each  with  the 
fittest  possible  appropriations  of  tender  lamentation. 

The  'Miscellaneous  Pieces'  include  some  of  those 
which  the  world  will  never  "  willingly  let  die : "  '  The 
Treasures  of  the  Deep,'  '  Bring  Flowers,'  e  The  Parting  of 
Summer,'  'The  Songs  of  our  Fathers,'  'Kindred  Hearts/ 
'  Evening  Prayer  at  a  Girl's  School,'  '  The  Hour  of  Death,' 
'The  Breeze  from  Shore,'  'Music  of  Yesterday,'  and  'The 
Forsaken  Hearth  ; '  besides  a  dozen  others  of  less  general 
interest,  though  scarcely  less  beautiful ;  and  a  few  of  little 
worth,  among  them  '  Thekla's  Song.' 

A  second  series  of  '  Miscellaneous  Pieces,'  also  printed 
in  the  fourth  volume  of  the  collected  'Works,'  includes 
the  imperishable  '  Ivy  Song,'  of  which  an  altered  copy  is 
reprinted  in  the  seventh  volume ;  a  duplicate  of  the  '  Dirge,' 
from  '  The  Siege  of  Valencia,'  lengthened  by  the  interpo- 


LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  437 

lation  of  a  third  verse  between  the  original  two;  '  An 
Epitaph ; '  and  *  A  Monumental  Inscription/  the  first 
ivplete  with  solemn  tenderness,  the  last  with  elevating 
piety;  'The  Vaudois  Valleys/  an  expansion  of  Milton's 
sorrowfully  grand  sonnet  'On  the  Massacres  in  Piedmont/ 
and  some  other  poems  of  inferior  merit. 

In  April  she  wrote  her  sweet  lines  '  To  the  Memory  of 
a  Sister-in-law/  for  the  same  year  saw  the  Bronwylfa 
hearth  again  rendered  desolate  by  death,  and  Sir  Henry 
a  second  time  a  widower.  Not  long  after  this  afflictive 
stroke,  the  health  of  the  pious  and  excellent  mother  of  the 
race  underwent  a  threatening  change.  During  the  eight 
painful  months  which  followed,  her  children,  and  more  es- 
pecially her  dearest  and  fondest  child,  watched  with  cease- 
less anxiety  the  fluctuating  yet  unremitting  progress  of 
bodily  decay;  while  the  devout  and  active  mind  of  the 
sufferer  watched  also  and  warded  over  them  with  careful, 
cheerful,  and  tender  sympathy,  until  at  length  she  ex- 
changed, in  tranquil  sleep,  the  peace  of  God  on  earth  for 
the  blessedness  of  Heaven,  on  the  llth  of  January,  1827. 

Besides  the  extensive  benefits  conferred  by  the  example 
and  precepts  of  this  admirable  woman  upon  the  other 
members  of  her  family,  and  upon  all  who  came  in  contact 
with  her  in  domestic  and  social  life,  the  effects  which  she 
was  instrumental  in  producing  upon  the  soul,  and  spirit, 
and  conduct  of  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Hemans,  entitle  her  to 
the  veneration  and  gratitude  of  all,  who  throughout  the 
British  Empire,  and  throughout  all  the  regions  ruled  by 
the  British  tongue,  have  read  and  taken  to  heart  her  pure, 
ennobling,  and  exalting  poetic  teachings.  The  mysterious 
workings  of  cause  and  effect,  under  providential  guidance, 
between  the  quiet  routine  of  that  secluded  saint's  daily 
life,  and  the  performance  of  ten  thousand  good  deeds  in 


438  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

remote  countries  by  people  awakened  to  spiritual  energy 
through  the  simple  agency  of  a  book,  or  a  single  poem, 
will  probably  be  traced  with  admiration  when  earth's  pro- 
bationers look  back  from  Heaven  upon  their  journey. 

The  *  Hymn  by  the  Sick-bed  of  a  Mother,'  with  its  ago- 
nized intensity  of  sorrow,  the  deeply  plaintive  '  No  More,' 
the  *  Passing  Away/  the  '  Lines  to  a  Butterfly  resting  on 
a  Scull,'  'The  Subterranean  Stream/  'The  Silent  Multi- 
tude/ '  The  Antique  Sepulchre/  *  The  Memory  of  the 
Dead/  <  The  Angel's  Greeting/  '  The  Charmed  Picture/ 
'The  Deserted  House/  and  incidental  allusions  in  many 
subsequent  poems,  reiterate  upon  her  own  heart  the  awful 
lessons  taught  by  this  irreparable  bereavement,  indicate 
the  strength  of  her  filial  affection,  and  the  anguish  of  sepa- 
ration from  the  parent  whose  love  had  been  the  only  stead- 
fast joy  of  her  life.  Fondly  as  she  cherished  her  children, 
their  love  as  children  could  not  relieve  her  sense  of  deso- 
lation. She  needed  the  supporting  and  sustaining  attach- 
ment of  persons  relatively  superior  to  her.  Those  poems 
which  relate  to  her  mother  give,  in  their  mournful  and 
almost  infantine  simplicity,  their  candid  avowal  of  faults 
and  failings,  their  prostrate  grief  and  deploring  helpless- 
ness, so  complete  an  unveiling  of  her  inmost  soul  in  its 
weakness  and  its  nobleness,  that  no  one  can  read  them 
without  tender  sympathy  :  while  the  apt  language  of  fine 
intellect,  the  poetic  grace,  the  entrancing  and  harmonious 
melody  of  versification,  put  forth  carelessly,  and  as  it  were 
at  hazard  and  unawares,  awaken  reverential  admiration. 
A  character  so  dependent,  so  devoid  of  hardihood,  so  essen- 
tially feminine,  and  yet  so  enterprising  and  self-respecting, 
is  almost  an  anomaly  in  the  world  of  literature. 

Mrs.  Hemans  bore  the  bitter  agony  of  this  separation 
with  meek  submission  and  unrepining  fortitude.    She  knew 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  439 

that  her  best  earthly  comforter,  guide,  and  protector,  the 
out'  being  to  whom  she  had  been  life's  chief  object,  and 
who  had  loved  her  best,  was  passed  away ;  and  she  foresaw 
the  fearful  enhancement  of  weight  with  which  all  cares 
and  griefs  must  henceforth  crush  in  upon  her ;  while  the 
loneliness,  the  forlornness  of  being  left  unsolaced  by  a 
mother's  eye  and  voice,  presented  itself  to  her  imagination 
with  terrible  truthfulness.  To  have  been  left  an  orphan 
in  early  youth  would  probably  have  been  less  trying.  Now, 
for  the  first  time,  she  felt  in  its  full  force,  what  it  was 
to  be  a  forsaken  wife,  to  sustain  the  social  position  of  a 
slighted  woman,  and  to  undertake  the  responsibilities  both 
of  father  and  mother  to  her  children.  The  world  honoured 
her,  friends  idolized  her,  her  family  loved  her  with  enthu- 
siasm ;  she  gratefully  appreciated  every  form  and  degree 
of  attachment,  and  exerted  her  energies  to  the  utmost  to 
be  to  each  and  to  all  everything  that  could  be  demanded 
or  expected  from  her.  She  formed  new  plans  for  her  chil- 
dren's benefit,  she  projected  new  literary  enterprises,  she 
cultivated  new  friendships,  she  acceded  to  the  wishes  of 
her  acquaintance  in  things  to  which  nothing  led  her  ex- 
cepting the  desire  to  give  them  pleasure.  In  the  same 
year,  Mr.  W.  E.  West  made  a  sojourn  of  several  weeks  at 
Rhyllon,  on  purpose  to  take  several  portraits  of  her.  He 
produced  three,  one  of  them  for  Mr.  A.  A.  Watts's  Gallery 
of  the  Living  Authors  of  Great  Britain ;  one,  which  became 
the  property  of  Professor  Norton;  and  a  third,  deemed 
the  best  likeness  ever  taken  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  which  he 
presented  to  her  sister. 

Having  sent  a  manuscript  copy  of  her  'Hymns  for 
Childhood,'  to  Professor  Norton,  for  the  use  of  his  own 
family,  he,  with  her  permission,  allowed  it  to  be  printed  in 
1827,  under  his  auspices,  at  Boston,  in  New  England. 


440  LITEBAKY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

These  'Hymns,'  which  connect  the  gratification  of  the 
eye  with  life's  destinies  and  with  just  sentiments,  have  no 
peculiar  adaptation  to  childhood,  but  are  equally  suitable 
for  adolescence,  or  manhood,  and  still  more  so  for  woman- 
hood. Mrs.  Hemans's  mental  and  moral  perceptions  were 
so  uniformly  clear  and  bright,  that  few  intellects  at  any 
age  could  find  difficulty  in  following  their  lucid  track; 
nevertheless,  she  Jiad  not  that  particular  faculty  for  instruc- 
tion which  consists  in  assuming  the  point  of  view  of  other 
and  differently  constituted  minds  in  various  stages  of 
development.  Her  art  consisted  rather  in  wafting  people 
gently  away  in  her  own  stream,  than  in  floating  as  a  pilot 
on  their  rafts. 

Up  to  the  date  of  *  The  Forest  Sanctuary,'  her  compo- 
sitions show  little  more  than  that  upper  current  of  habitual 
interest  in  nature,  history,  and  the  fine  arts,  which  glided 
calmly  and  brightly  over  turbid  depths  of  suffering.  Fa- 
mily sympathy  in  active  and  visible  exercise  yielding 
hourly  balm  to  her  bosom  grief,  and  soothing  its  poignancy, 
had  enabled  her  in  that  lovely  poem  to  pour  forth  much 
of  her  own  inward  self;  and  subsequently  she  acquired 
courage  freely  to  throw  her  heart  into  her  passing  theme. 
Her  mother's  death,  casting  back  upon  herself  many  feelings 
which  would  otherwise  have  ebbed  away  secretly  and  safely, 
probably  led  afterwards  to  that  fervid  utterance  of  her  very 
soul  in  poetry,  which  tended  for  a  time  to  transform  an 
innocuous  and  pleasing  occupation  into  an  exhausting  and 
health-destroying  process. 

In  May,  1828,  her  'Kecords  of  Woman,'  a  series  of 
nineteen  poems,  of  which  thirteen  are  narrative  and  three 
monumental,  was  published  in  Edinburgh.  All  these 
poems,  founded  on  facts  or  recorded  incidents,  Mrs.  Hemans 
has  made  inalienably  her  own,  not  by  a  mere  paraphrastic 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.        441 

M-rsion,  but  by  the  absolute  fusion  and  complete  recasting 
of  material  in  amalgamation  with  ore  of  the  richest  kind 
from  her  own  mines.  In  thus  exemplifying  the  character- 
istics of  women,  by  instances  of  lofty  self-sacrifice,  tender 
devotion,  attractive  amiability,  and  inextinguishable  faith- 
fulness, she  has  indeed  coined  and  exhibited  her  very  self. 
'  Arabella  Stuart '  offers  an  exquisite  correlative,  eorrective, 
and  counteractive  of  Pope's  '  Epistle  '  in  a  similar  subject 
treated  by  a  feminine  hand.  The  scenic  accessories  with 
which  she  adorns  a  story  of  lonely  and  monotonous  impri- 
sonment, render  every  division  a  pausing  place  for  enjoy- 
ment and  admiration. 

"  Misery  still  delights  to  trace 
Its  semblance  in  another's  case ;" 

and  '  Properzia  Eossi  *  tells  but  too  plainly  the  recorder's 
own  tale,  while  relating  the  unrequited,  ill-requited  love 
of  a  woman  of  genius,  who  yearns  for  the  affection  of  one, 
and  sickens  at  the  world's  applause. 

In  her  circumstances  to  write  such  a  series  was  hazard- 
ous to  health;  to  write  *  Properzia  Kossi'  was  almost 
suicidal.  It  gives  a  heartache  to  the  reader  to  think  of 
the  motherless  disconsolate  grief  under  which  she  must 
have  suffered  with  such  unyielding  dignity. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1828,  Mrs.  Hemans  paid 
another  visit  of  several  weeks  to  her  kind  friends  at 
Wavertree  Lodge ;  who,  alarmed  at  the  change  which  had 
taken  place  in  her  health,  prevailed  on  her  to  place  her- 
self immediately  under  medical  care. 

Professor  and  Mrs.  Norton  having  just  reached  Liver- 
pool at  this  time,  on  a  visit  from  America,  their  personal 
introduction  agreeably  enhanced  the  interest  of  her  sojourn, 
which  was  also  remarkable  for  her  first  personal  acquain- 
tance with  Mary  Howitt,  and  with  the  Chorley  family. 


442  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Her  intercourse  in  the  last  named  instance  began  with  a 
request  that  she  would  become  a  contributor  to  their 
annual  called  '  The  Winter's  Wreath/  and  with  her  ready 
compliance.  Assured  of  finding  in  Mrs.  Lawrence  of 
Wavertree  Hall,  in  the  Parks  of  Wavertree  Lodge,  and 
in  the  Chorleys,  friends  and  companions  after  her  own 
heart,  and  trusting  that  Liverpool  would  prove  a  desirable 
place  of  education  for  her  boys,  she  selected  a  small  house 
in  the  village  of  Wavertree  for  her  new  abode,  and  re- 
turned late  in  the  month  of  July  to  Ehyllon,  in  order  to 
make  preparations  for  the  intended  removal. 

Miss  Jewsbury,  with  whom  she  had  been  previously  in 
correspondence,  was  then  domiciled  with  her  young  wards 
at  Pumrhos,  a  cottage  within  half-a-mile  of  Khyllon.  The 
enthusiastic  admiration  and  affection  evinced  by  Miss 
Jewsbury  for  Mrs.  Hemans  soothed  her  perturbed  feelings, 
and  elicited  a  return  of  deep  and  true  attachment.  Their 
minds  were  of  an  opposite  cast,  and  might  almost  have 
served  as  types  of  distinctive  classes,  ratiocination  being 
the  chief  characteristic  of  one,  and  intuitive  fineness  of 
perception  of  the  other. 

They  took  reciprocal  delight  in  each  other's  conversation. 
The  thoughts  of  Miss  Jewsbury  were,  like  frost  and  lime, 
wholesome  correctives  to  those  of  Mrs.  Hemans;  the 
thoughts  of  Mrs.  Hemans  were  like  overflowing  brooks 
and  sunny  showers  to  those  of  Miss  Jewsbury,  softening 
and  enriching  them.  Mrs.  Hemans  always  avowed  her 
sense  of  obligation  to  Miss  Jewsbury  for  leading  her  to 
enter  more  fully  than  she  had  ever  done  before  into  the 
devout  spirit  of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  and  for  making  her 
first  acquainted  with  many  of  his  compositions.  Among 
the  latter  was  '  Laodamia,'  which  falling  upon  the  tinder 
of  many  a  burnt  up  figment  of  former  fancies  set  it  smoul- 


LITKIIAKY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  443 

airain  to  the  detriment  of  her  peace.  Although 
Miss  ,lt>\\shury's  habit  of  analyzing  character  was  altoge- 
ther displeasing  and  repugnant  to  Mrs.  Hemans,  she  sub- 
mitted her  own  guileless  and  unreserved  self  to  dissection 
with  the  complacency  attendant  on  having  nothing  to  hide, 
and  on  having  a  noble  nature  thoroughly  understood. 

This  autumn,  too,  brought  James  Montgomery  to  Khyl- 
lon.  He  came,  like  a  true  poet,  to  offer  honest  homage  to 
Mrs.  Hemans,  on  his  return  from  exploring  Snowdon,  where 
he  had  caught  the  true  spirit  of  old  Cymru's  legends  in 
which  she  took  invariable  interest.  Indeed,  the  love  of 
fairy  tales,  a  taste  for  the  preternatural,  formed  a  recom- 
mendation to  her  favour — so  strong,  that  even  her  regard 
for  Bishop  Heber  was  increased  by  his  possessing  it. 

She  had  hoped  that  her  brother,  Lieutenant-Colonel 
George  Browne  and  his  wife  would  remove  with  her  to 
Wavertree  and  reside  with  her  there.  This  plan  was  frus- 
trated by  his  receiving  an  appointment  as  Commissioner 
of  Police  in  Ireland,  whither  he  was  obliged  immediately 
to  repair.  Under  this  disappointment  she  wrote  to  a  friend 
at  Liverpool: — "I  fear  I  shall  feel  very  lonely  and  bro- 
therless,  as  I  have  always  been  one  of  a  large  family  circle 
before.  I  could  laugh  or  cry  when  I  think  of  the  helpless- 
ness, natural  and  acquired,  which  I  have  contrived  to 
accumulate."  Of  her  sister,  in  reference  to  this  parting, 
she  says : — "  In  mine,  I  shall  be  deprived  of  the  or ly  real 
companion  I  have  ever  had ;  she  is  to  leave  me  on  Satur- 
day next,  and  I  am  haunted  by  those  melancholy  words 
of  St.  Leon's  guest,  the  unhappy  old  man  with  his 
immortal  gifts,  Alone !  Alone  ! " 

Her  bitterest  anguish  in  this  family  dispersion  must 
have  consisted  in  parting  with  her  two  eldest  boys  on  their 
setting  out  for  Rome  to  join  their  father.  The  voice,  the 


444  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

footsteps  of  the  long  absent  one,  so  long  listened  for,  had 
never  approached.  On  hearing  she  was  motherless,  he 
had  not  returned  to  protect  and  console  her ;  there  was 
a  possibility  that  he  might  teach  her  darlings  to  love 
her  less,  there  was  an  absolute  certainty  of  his  confirmed 
alienation.  On  the  point  of  departure  from  Ehyllon,  she 
wrote  her  *  Farewell  to  Wales,'  to  the  Welsh  air  of  Llwyn 
On;  one  of  those  effusions  which,  called  forth  by  the 
transient  occasion  of  an  hour,  lives  on  for  the  use  of  cen- 
turies. Writing  to  her  confidential  friend  at  Wavertree 
Lodge,  concerning  the  sorrows  and  conflicts  of  this  period, 
she  exclaims :  "  Oh  !  that  I  could  but  lift  up  my  heart,  and 
sustain  it,  at  that  height  where  alone  the  calm  sunshine 


is!"* 


There  were  many  alleviating  circumstances  attendant  on 
this  migration.  She  was  going  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
city  in  which  she  was  born ;  she  had  many  intimate  and  well- 
tried  friends  there,  she  had  occasionally  trodden  its  streets, 
had  often  seen  its  spires  from  the  Cefn-yr-Ogo,  and  learned 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Denbighshire  and  Flintshire  to  regard 
it  as  a  North  Welsh  metropolis.  Besides,  her .  eldest  bro- 
ther continued  to  be  a  Welsh  landowner  and  resident,  her 
sister  had  become  the  wife  of  a  Montgomeryshire  rector, 
and  these  remaining  ties  prevented  her  from  feeling  the 
pang  of  final  separation  from  the  land  of  her  own  and  of 
her  children's  childhood,  of  her  almost  life-long  home,  and 
of  her  mother's  grave.  Yet  the  pain  of  parting  was  acute, 
and  greatly  augmented  by  the  affectionate  regrets  and 
blessings  of  the  Welsh  peasants,  who  kissed  the  very  gate- 
posts through  which  she  had  passed.  Kind  friends  met 
her  at  Bagilt,  and  on  board  the  packet,  and  conducted  her 
little  party  in  safety  to  Wavertree  Lodge,  on  one  of  the  last 

*  •  Memoir/  p.  151. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  445 

days  of  the  month  of  September,  in  the  year  1828.  In  her 
first  letter  from  thence  to  St.  Asaph,  she  writes : — "  Oh ! 
that  Tuesday  morning!  I  literally  covered  my  face  all  the 
way  from  Bronwylfa,  until  the  boys  told  me  we  had  passed 
the  Clwyd  range  of  hills.  Then  something  of  the  bitter- 
ness was  over."  * 

To  the  period  intervening  between  the  publication  of 
'  The  Forest  Sanctuary '  and  her  departure  from  Wales 
belong  most  of  the  pieces  which  stand  in  the  fifth  volume 
of  the  collected  '  Works,'  under  the  title  of  *  Miscellaneous 
Poems.'  All  these  are  of  perennial  worth.  Among  them 
is  *  An  Hour  of  Komance,'  which  literally  details  her  own 
feelings  when  sitting  in  the  Ehyllon  dingle  in  summer- 
time reading  Scott's  '  Talisman,'  and  aroused  from  the 
illusion  by  her  jocund  children  :  that  touching  lyric  '  The 
Homes  of  England,'  which  is  worthy  to  last  as  long  as  the 
nation  does ;  the  famous  *  Pilgrim  Fathers,'  of  which  the 
population  of  North  America  will  take  charge  ;  the  witch- 
ing '  Spells  of  Home ; '  '  The  Graves  of  a  Household/ 
which,  even  among  her  own  productions,  can  scarcely  find  a 
parallel  in  tender  truth ;  and  '  The  Sunbeam,'  which  being 
—in  its  very  first  conception  of  the  effect  of  a  sunbeam 
in  all  sorts  of  places — genuine  poetry,  is  also  perfect  in 
execution.  There  also  is  '  Mozart's  Kequiem,'  melodious 
and  affecting  as  the  music  which  it  celebrates ;  a  masterly 
proof  of  her  rich,  deep,  and  passionate  susceptibilities  of 
earthly  joy  and  pain,  and  of  the  poetic  power  of  expressing 
them  with  which  she  was  dowered.  The  composition  of 
this  piece  excited  her  feelings  to  a  degree  which  seriously 
impaired  her  health,  and  even  threatened  danger  to  her 
life.  From  this  brilliant  emanation  of  her  genius  might 
be  demonstrated  the  partial  cultivation  of  mind  which  left 
*  '  Memoir,'  p.  152. 


446  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

its  most  defective  province  in  sterility.  Her  imagination, 
although  invariably  applied  to  pure  and  noble  purposes, 
was  habitually  allowed  to  hover,  with  emotional  and  pic- 
turesque exaggeration,  over  individual  mortifications,  dis- 
appointments, and  cares.  Conscience  held  all  her  moral 
feelings  in  strict  control ;  but  sound,  deductive  reason  was 
unhappily  denied  due  mental  predominance. 

Kesting  awhile  among  her  good  and  hospitable  friends 
at  Wavertree  Lodge,  to  soothe  her  spirits  and  recruit  her 
strength,  she  at  last  removed  with  her  three  boys  to  the 
small  house  which  the  care  of  those  friends  had  fitted  up 
for  her  reception.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  then 
entered  on  the  sole  charge  of  household  management — for 
the  first  time  became  liable  to  the  harassing  cares  of 
practical  life,  amenable  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  general 
society,  and  subject  to  the  formal  restraints  of  the  peculiar 
code,  of  manners  belonging  to  a  great  commercial  town 
and  its  suburbs.  In  exchanging  rural  habits  for  those  of 
a  busy  mart  of  merchandise — the  freshness  and  freedom 
of  nature  for  the  dingy  disproportions  of  wharves,  ware- 
houses, and  streets — the  horizon  of  mountain-curves  for 
the  level  lines  that  as  far  as  possible  deteriorate  the  very 
sky — familiar  and  loving  faces  for  the  rude  stare  of 
strangers  and  the  simper  of  affected  courtesy — her  feelings 
experienced  a  series  of  painful  shocks ;  and,  with  the  in- 
stinct of  self-protection,  she  held  back  from  the  gay  world 
of  Liverpool  and  Wavertree,  and  sought  her  social  plea- 
sures only  on  the  hearth  of  a  few  chosen  friends,  or  on  her 
own.  She  could  not  submit  habitually  to  endure  the 
burdensome  company  of  people  who  were  obviously  as  in- 
capable of  deriving  pleasure  or  profit  from  her  conversation 
as  of  conferring  it  by  their  own.  She  was  too  sincere  to 
practise  or  to  tolerate  the  accepted  forms  of  heartless 


LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  447 

intommrsr  which  servo  to  hold  together  large  troops  of 
IK nninal  friends.  The  whole  routine  of  public  amusements, 
gregarious  assemblies,  conventional  usages,  and  formal 
compliments,  was  utterly  distasteful  to  her.  Besides  all 
this,  she  had  that  earnest  and  ever-present  sense  of  work- 
ing out  a  great  purpose  in  life's  days  and  hours,  which 
rendered  all  hindrances  and  impediments  to  her  studies 
ineffably  irksome.  It  was  the  very  simplicity  of  her  cha- 
racter wliich  prevented  it  from  being  understood.  The 
lower  nature  can  never  comprehend  the  higher,  and  is  apt 
to  suppose  that  where  versatile  powers  exist  there  must  be 
much  complexity,  not  being  able  to  conceive  of  such 
powers  in  easy  and  natural  exercise,  but  patching  up  a 
notion  of  them  as  separate,  artificial  exertions  of  eccentric 
capabilities,  attended  by  the  difficult  setting  in  action  of 
many  wheels  and  chains  of  artfully-hidden  machinery  :  in 
short,  the  dunces  think  the  gifted  must  have  as  much 
trouble  in  being  clever  as  it  would  cost  them  to  be  so. 

It  was  not,  however,  only  by  the  worldly,  whether  gay 
or  dull,  that  she  was  misapprehended.  The  grave  and 
sensible  often  disliked  her  vivacity,  and  censured  her  in- 
tolerance of  syllogistic  argument.  Accustomed  to  be  the 
idol  of  a  domestic  circle,  where  affection  rendered  others 
subservient  to  her  tastes,  she  desired  beyond  that  circle  to 
find  only  congenial  objects  on  wliich  her  imagination  might 
always  freely  act,  and  where  it  might  find  occasional  reci- 
procation. The  fulsomeness  of  flattery  and  adulation  dis- 
gusted her.  She  cared  not  for  admiration  unless  it  was 
affectionately  sincere.  The  approbation  of  her  works 
which  proceeded  from  critical  judgment  encouraged  and 
strengthened  her  efforts  to  attain  excellence ;  the  love  for 
them  which  produced  personal  friends  cheered  her  heart 
and  brightened  her  lot.  She  seems  from  girlhood  to  have 


448  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

aimed  at  a  merely  oral  reputation ;  and  now  that  the  eyes  of 
thousands  followed  her  as  one  of  the  most  eminent  women 
of  her  time,  she  fain  -would  have  shrunk  away  like  that 
delicate  Medusa  whose  presence  in  a  vessel  can  only  be 
ascertained  by  the  faint  shadow  of  its  form.  Describing 
her  own  sensations  at  this  epoch,  she  says :  "  I  have  no 
taste,  no  health  for  the  enjoyment  of  extensive  society.  I 
have  been  all  my  life  a  creature  of  hearth  and  home ;  and 
now  that '  the  mother  that  looked  on  my  childhood  is  gone,' 
and  that  my  brothers  and  sisters  are  scattered  far  and 
wide,  I  have  no  wish  but  to  gather  around  the  few  friends 
who  will  love  me  and  enter  into  my  pursuits.  I  wish  I 
could  give  you  the  least  idea  of  what  kindness  is  to  me — 
how  much  more,  how  far  dearer  than  fame."  * 

She  often  derived  enjoyment  from  the  quiet  conversa- 
tion of  Mr.  Roscoe ;  and  occasionally  she  attended  public 
places  and  private  parties  during  her  residence  at  Liver- 
pool ;  but  the  oppressive  sense  of  breathing  in  a  crowd 
threw  her  thoughts  and  feelings  back  upon  herself  in  for- 
lorn depression.  It  was  not  in  her  nature — it  is  not  in  the 
nature  of  genius — to  shrink  back  from  bearing  its  part  in 
the  social  exchange  and  collision  of  intellect.  She  never 
failed  to  bring  in  rich  and  curious  contributions  of  enter- 
taining matter,  nor  to  exercise  her  various  talents,  her 
eloquence,  wit,  and  satiric  piquancy  for  the  amusement 
and  delight  of  her  companions:  her  marvellous  memory 
and  all  its  stores  of  reading  and  observation,  her  brilliant 
faculties  of  combination  and  illustration,  were  set,  whether 
the  theme  were  grave  or  gay,  with  equal  readiness  at  their 
service,  although  her  lively  spirits,  forcing  their  way  like 
gleams  of  sunshine  through  mists,  were  often  followed  by 
silent  tears.  To  congenial  associates,  wherever  she  went, 

*  •  Memorials,'  vol.  i.,  p.  209. 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND/  449 

she  was  just  the  same  artless,  confiding,  and  communicative 
creature  she  had  been  at  her  mother's  fireside.  To  the 
outer  world  she  was  incomprehensible.  In  a  letter  ad- 
dressed at  this  period  to  an  intimate  friend  and  former 
neighbour,  she  says :  "  How  I  look  back  upon  the  compa- 
rafive  peace  and  repose  of  Bronwylfa  and  Rhyllon! — a 
walk  in  the  hay-field,  the  children  playing  round  me,  my 
dear  mother  coming  to  call  me  in  from  the  dew,  and  you 
perhaps  making  your  appearance  just  in  the  gloaming 
with  a  great  bunch  of  flowers  in  your  kind  hand.  How 
have  those  things  passed  away  from  me ;  and  how  much 
more  was  I  formed  for  their  quiet  happiness  than  for  the 
weary  part  of  femme  celebre  which  I  am  now  enacting ! 
But  my  heart  is  with  those  home  enjoyments,  and  there, 
however  tried,  excited,  and  wrung,  it  will  ever  remain." 

She  had  scarcely  got  settled  in  her  new  home,  and  begun 
to  make  what  acknowledgments  she  could  for  the  civilities 
and  kindnesses  which  new  friends  and  old  ones,  and  legions 
of  acquaintance  proffered  and  pressed  upon  her,  before 
her  three  children  were  seized  with  the  whooping-cough. 
For  several  months  she  had  subsequently  to  endure  not 
only  maternal  anxieties,  the  fatigue  of  nursing,  and  the 
distracting  jar  of  the  spasmodic  symptoms,  but  also  to 
suffer  from  a  personal  attack  of  the  same  harassing  dis- 
order. In  the  spring  of  1829,  change  of  air  to  the  bathing- 
place  of  Seacombe  for  a  month,  aided  in  restoring  and 
reviving  the  invalids.  While  there  her  interest  was  strongly 
aroused  by  attending  divine  service  at  the  Mariners'  Float- 
ing Church,  and  by  conversing  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Scoresby 
concerning  his  congregation.  Anything  connected  with 
the  sea  was  always  attractive  to  her,  for  the  sea  held  over 
her  a  sort  of  melancholy  fascination. 

Early  in  the  month  of  July  Mrs.  Hemans,  having  ac- 

2a 


450  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

cepted  a  pressing  invitation  to  visit  Scotland,  where  her 
writings  had  raised  up  for  her  numerous  hosts  of  yet  unseen 
friends,  committed  the  eldest  of  her  three  younger  sons  to 
the  charge  of  the  kind  inhabitants  of  Wavertree  Lodge, 
and,  accompanied  by  the  two  others  and  by  her  maid,  em- 
barked for  the  Frith  of  Forth.  On  their  arrival  in  Edin- 
burgh, her  name  won  general  homage,  and  all  kinds  of  atten- 
tion were  spontaneously  lavished  upon  her.  Kemaining  a 
few  days  there,  she  examined  the  principal  objects  of  local 
interest,  especially  Holyrood  Palace.  From  Edinburgh  she 
proceeded  into  Eoxburghshire,  to  her  main  point  of  destina- 
tion, Chiefswood,  near  Melrose,  then  the  residence  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Hamilton  (the  author  of  *  Cyril  Thornton ')  and  of 
his  amiable  wife.  Her  buoyant  spirits,  rejoicing  in  a  return 
to  free  hills  and  streams,  gave  for  a  time  a  favourable 
impulse  to  her  feeble  health.  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  her 
near  neighbour,  and,  becoming  personally  acquainted, 
they  at  once  associated  together  as  kindred  of  the  lyre, — 
wandering  through  the  Rhymour's  Glen,  crossing  ankle- 
deep  the  haunted  bourn,  making  their  way  through 
thickets  of  wild-roses,  standing  beneath  the  rowan-tree  at 
the  rocky  pool  in  the  plash  of  the  waterfall,  resting  on 
a  grassy  bank  in  the  wood,  plucking  sprays  of  wild- 
strawberries  while  he  narrated  stories  of  old  times,  and 
local  legends  about  all  creatures,  natural  and  preternatural, 
biped,  quadruped,  and  indefinable.  Her  mind  for  the 
time  agreeably  resigned  itself  to  the  mediaeval  guidance  of 
his.  He  and  Mrs.  Lockhart  made  a  party  for  her  to  visit 
the  Yarrow.  He  took  her  to  Newark  Tower,  along  the 
Ettrick,  where  they  talked  of  Aneurin  and  his  poetry; 
and  through  the  Tweed  back  to  Abbotsford,  where  he 
exhibited  his  collection  of  swords,  and  gratified  her  pecu- 
liar predilection  for  the  glitter  and  the  gleam  of  steel. 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  451 

Then  he  received  her  and  her  boys  altogether  into  his  own 
feudal  home,  among  his  children  and  grandchildren,  and 
treated  the  recent  strangers  with  all  the  cheerful,  benignant 
courtesy  of  his  fatherly  heart.  Nor  was  she  backward  in 
exerting  herself  to  give  him  pleasure :  every  morning  she 
rambled  about  on  foot,  or  drove  out  with  him;  every 
evening  she  put  forth  her  various  powers,  conversational 
or  musical,  for  his  amusement.  While  she  was  his  guest 
the  Due  de  Chartres  and  his  suite  arrived  at  Abbotsford. 
Mrs.  Hemans,  relating  the  fact,  adds:  "I  was  a  little 
nervous  when  Sir  Walter  handed  me  to  the  piano,  on 
which  I  was  the  sole  performer,  for  the  delectation  of  the 
courtly  party!"*  On  leaving  Abbotsford,  she  remarks: 
"  I  shall  not  forget  the  kindness  of  Sir  Walter's  farewell, 
so  frank,  and  simple,  and  heartfelt,  as  he  said  to  me, 
'  There  are  some  whom  we  meet  and  should  like  ever  after 
to  claim  as  kith  and  kin ;  and  you  are  one  of  those.'  "  t 

From  thence  Mrs.  Hemans  proceeded  to  the  house  of 
Sir  David  and  the  Hon.  Lady  Wedderburn,  in  Edinburgh. 
Among  the  eminent  persons  to  whom  she  became  per- 
sonally known  during  this  sojourn  were — Mr.  Henry  Mac- 
kenzie, the  author  of  *  The  Man  of  Feeling ; '  Mr.  Alison ; 
Captain  Basil  Hall ;  Mr.  Jeffrey,  with  whom  she  spent  a 
brightly-intellectual  day  at  Craig  Crook ;  and  Mrs.  Grant 
of  Laggan.  The  latter  has  traced  a  shadowy  sketch  of 
the  English  poetess's  passing  image,  which  is  worthy  of 
note  as  a  testimony  of  the  general  effect  produced  by  her 
appearance  and  manners.  "  I  had  a  charming  guest  before 
I  left  town  to  come  here — no  other  than  the  very  charming 
Mrs.  Hemans,  for  whom  I  have  long  felt  something  very 
like  affection.  She  had  two  fine  boys  with  her,  the  objects 
visibly  of  very  great  tenderness,  who  seem  equally  attached 
*  'Memoir,'  pp.  181-2.  t  H»d.t  P-  191- 

2  G  2 


452  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

to  her.  She  is  entirely  feminine ;  and  her  language  has 
a  charin  like  that  of  her  verse — the  same  ease  and  peculiar 
grace,  with  more  vivacity.  If  affliction  had  not  laid  a 
heavy  hand '  upon  her  she  would  be  playful :  she  has  not 
the  slightest  tinge  of  affectation ;  and  is  so  refined,  so 
gentle,  that  you  must  both  love  and  respect  her."  * 

Three  at  least  of  her  poems  sprung  up  in  Scottish  soil : 
one,  '  On  a  Remembered  Picture,'  which  she  wrote  at 
Chiefswood  under  the  promptings  of  the  portrait  at  Holy- 
rood,  commonly  known  as  Rizzio's  ;  another,  '  The  Farewell 
to  Abbotsford,'  which  she  put  into  Sir  Walter  Scott's  hand 
at  the  gate  in  departing ;  and  '  The  Rhine  Song,'  founded 
on  an  anecdote  related  to  her  by  Sir  Walter :  to  say  nothing 
of  the  whimsical  '  Last  Words  of  the  Last  Wasp  in  Scot- 
land,' written  in  a  jousting-match  of  wit  with  Mr.  Sharpe. 

She  was  on  the  point  of  quitting  Edinburgh  when  the 
entreaties  of  her  aged  friend  Sir  Robert  Liston  prevailed 
on  her  to  visit  him  at  Milburn  Tower,  and  there  to  sit  to 
Mr.  Angus  Fletcher  for  a  bust.  The  necessary  process 
having  been  gone  through,  she  returned  with  her  boys  to 
her  house  at  Wavertree,  and  her  daily  life  resumed  its 
ordinary  course.  Miss  Jewsbury  soon  afterwards  became 
for  a  short  time  her  guest.  At  this  time  her  whole  orga- 
nization, physical  and  mental,  went  wrong.  Even  her 
appetite  for  books  grew  partial  and  unhealthy.  The 
German  poets,  Madame  de  Stael,  Lord  Byron,  Shelley, 
Godwin,  and  a  few  articles  in  periodicals,  formed  her  staple 
diet.  Her  mind  dwelt  inordinately  on  her  griefs,  and  re- 
coiled to  them  again  from  diversions,  which  proved  rather 
interruptions  than  recreations.  Frequent  accesses  of  bodily 
illness,  with  consequent  wakeftilness  and  restlessness,  added 
to  the  evil  complication  of  disorders,  and  her  sensitiveness 

*  Mrs.  Grant's  '  Letters,'  vol.  iii.  p.  156.    Date  August,  1829. 


I.1TKRARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  453 

of  temperament  became  painfully  aggravated.  Her  yearn- 
ing after  the  vague,  tlie  indefinite,  and  the  supernatural 
found  expression  in  music,  for  which  her  love  heightened 
to  excess.  The  constant  remembrance  of  her  mother 
brought  the  world  of  spirits  as  it  were  into  close  contact ; 
a  desire  to  apprehend  the  unrevealed  and  impenetrable 
mysteries  of  existence  haunted  her  perpetually,  and  to  her 
former  burden  of  afflictions  and  cares  she  added  yet  an- 
other. "  La  maladie  principale  de  I'homme,"  declares 
Blaise  Pascal,  "  est  la  curiosite  inquiete  des  choses  qu'il 
ne  peut  savoir  " — The  chief  sickness  of  humanity  consists 
in  the  restless  desire  to  know  things  that  cannot  be  known. 
Under  this  tension  of  thought  and  feeling  Mrs.  Hemans 
composed  '  The  Spirit's  Keturn,'  a  poem  of  exquisite  and 
almost  unique  beauty,  forming  the  nucleus  of  many  be- 
wildering rays  of  ghastly  splendour  without  light  or  warmth, 
of  which  the  erratic  paths  may  be  traced  in  her  '  Works/ 
vol.  ii.  pp.  244,  262;  vol.  ui.  pp.  5,  216;  vol.  iv.  pp.  96, 
99;  vol.  v.  pp.  25,  26,  259,  268;  and  vol.  vi.  pp.  23 
and  41.  The  effect  of  writing  '  The  Spirit's  Return '  was 
pernicious  to  her  health,  and  corrosive  of  her  peace  of 
mind.  Well  was  it  for  her  that  she  had  children  calling 
her  back  every  hour  with  the  voice  of  love  from  such 
visionary  contemplations  to  the  tangible  and  visible  in- 
terests of  a  work-a-day  world ! 

By  way  of  counteracting  the  dread  of  the  mischief  wliich 
this  poem  may  do  to  the  over-sensitive  and  transcendental, 
there  is  some  degree  of  satisfaction  in  discerning  its  obvious 
use  to  grosser  minds  as  an  antidote  to  a  modern  and  un- 
fortunately common  form  of  the  same  general  malady — that 
disquieting  desire  to  attain  forbidden  knowledge.  The 
heroine,  soliloquizing  when  the  hour  of  unearthly  com- 
munion has  past,  exclaims : 


454  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

"  I  dwell  midst  throngs  apart 
In  the  cold  silence  of  the  stranger's  heart ; 
A  fixed,  immortal  shadow  stands  between 
My  spirit  and  life's  fast  receding  scene ; 
A  gift  hath  severed  me  from  human  ties, 
A  power  is  gone  from  all  earth's  melodies, 
Which  never  may  return  :  their  chords  are  broken, 
The  music  of  another  land  hath  spoken, 
No  after  sound  is  sweet ! " 

How  would  a  mind  so  full  of  penetrative  power,  so  subli- 
mated, rarefied,  and  etherialised,  have  revolted  from  the 
low,  coarse  folly  of  attempting  to  enter  into  communi- 
cation with  the  separate  spirits  of  departed  friends  by 
means  of  tables  and  sticks ! — means  better  worthy  to 
convey  to  human  sense  the  sagacious  acquirements  of 
birds  or  a  learned  quadruped's  acquaintance  with  the 
alphabet.  To  such  wooden  materialists  'The  Keturn  of 
the  Spirit '  would  certainly  be  safe,  and  might  probably 
be  profitable  reading.  Questioners  would  scarcely  fail 
to  find  the  palpable  deception  dispelled  by  the  dreamy 
illusion.  „ 

Early  in  the  year  1830,  Mrs.  Hemans  committed  to  the 
press  a  volume  containing  <  The  Spirit's  Ketum,'  the  brief 
mediaeval  romance  called  '  The  Lady  of  Province/  and  a 
series  of  thirty-one  short  poems,  which  had  previously 
appeared  in  'Blackwood's  Magazine,'  under  the  same 
general  title  there  borne,  '  Songs  of  the  Affections.'  They 
all  answer  the  implied  description  of  that  title,  and  are  as 
well  fitted  to  gratify  the  ear  and  the  imagination  as  the 
heart  and  intellect. 

Longing  again  for  rural  quiet,  she  indulged  herself,  in 
the  month  of  June,  with  a  visit  to  Westmorland.  The 
first  fortnight  of  that  sojourn  she  passed,  together  with  her 
youngest  child,  under  the  roof  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wordsworth, 
at  Eydal  Mount ;  and  from  thence  she  wrote  many  letters 
deeply  tinctured  with  the  colour  of  the  scene.  Dating 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  455 

the  24th,  and  addressing  a  friend,  she  says :  "I  seem  to 
be  writing  to  you  almost  from  the  spirit-land — all  here  is 
so  brightly  still,  so  remote  from  every-day  cares  and 
tumults,  that  sometimes  I  can  scarcely  persuade  myself  I 
am  not  dreaming.  It  scarcely  seems  to  be  the  light  of 
common  day  that  is  clothing  the  woody  mountains  before 
me :  there  is  something  almost  visionary  in  its  soft  gleams 
and  ever-changing  shadows.  I  am  charmed  with  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  whose  kindness  to  me  has  quite  a  soothing 
influence  over  my  spirits.  Oh,  what  relief,  what  blessing 
there  is  in  the  feeling  of  admiration  when  it  can  be  freely 
poured  forth !  There  is  a  daily  beauty  in  his  life  which  is 
in  such  lovely  harmony  with  his  poetry,  that  I  am  thankful 
to  have  witnessed  and  felt  it.  He  gives  me  a  good  deal  of 
his  society,  reads  to  me,  walks  with  me,  leads  my  pony 
when  I  ride;  and  I  begin  to  talk  with  him  as  with  a 
sort  of  paternal  friend.  The  whole  of  this  morning  he 

kindly  passed  in  reading  to  me Yesterday  evening 

he  walked  beside  me  as  I  rode  on  a  long  and  lovely  moun- 
tain-path high  above  Grasmere  Lake."  * 

Removing  from  the  poet's  happy  and  tranquillising  home 
to  lodgings  at  Dove's  Nest,  she  reassembled  there  her  three 
younger  children.  Writing  from  thence  to  another  friend, 
she  remarks  :  "  There  is  balm  in  the  very  stillness  of  the 
spot  I  have  chosen.  The  majestic  silence  of  these  lakes, 
perfectly  soundless  and  waveless  as  they  are,  except  when 
troubled  by  the  wind,  is  to  me  most  impressive.  Oh,  what 
a  poor  thing  is  society  in  the  presence  of  skies  and  waters 
and  everlasting  hills !  You  may  be  sure  I  do  not  allude 
to  the  dear  intercourse  of  friend  with  friend,  that  would 
be  dearer  tenfold,  more  precious,  more  hallowed  in  scenes 
like  this."  t 

*  'Memorials,'  vol.  ii.,  pp.  102-3.  t  Ibid.,  p.  111). 


•156  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

In  walking  and  riding,  in  boating  on  Winandermere,  in 
sitting  out  of  doors  sketching,  in  reading  and  conversing 
with  Wordsworth,  and  in  writing  poetry  and  letters  to  tell 
absent  friends  all  the  calm,  true  pleasure  she  was  enjoying, 
time  glided  away  with  the  healthfulness  of  activity  and 
the  serenity  of  repose,  until  the  advancing  season  brought 
an  influx  of  tourists  and  visitors  to  disturb  her.  Yielding 
then  to  the  repeated  solicitations  of  her  northern  friends, 
known  and  unknown,  she  left  the  Lakes  to  make  a  tour 
of  visits  to  Hopetoun  House,  Kinfauns,  and  other  noble 
abodes,  concluding  with  a  second  sojourn  at  Milburn  Tower, 
during  which  her  pleasant  intercourse  was  renewed  with 
the  best  ornaments  of  Edinburgh  society.  Enforced  atten- 
tion to  the  minor  details  of  housekeeping,  and  the  irre- 
sistible pressure  of  unsuitable  society  from  all  quarters, 
had  rendered  her  house  at  Wavertree  insufferably  dis- 
agreeable ;  and  if  the  severity  of  the  Scottish  climate  had 
not  threatened  to  be  fatal  to  her,  she  would  gladly  have 
fixed  her  future  home  in  Edinburgh.  The  family  of  Mr. 
J.  C.  Graves  of  Dublin  were  at  that  time  the  fellow-guests 
of  Sir  Robert  Liston.  Similarity  of  tastes  having  cemented 
a  friendship  between  them  and  Mrs.  Hemans,  she  was  in- 
duced, at  their  recommendation,  to  make  a  voyage  at  once 
to  Dublin,  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  its  suitability  as  a 
place  of  residence.  Her  younger  brother  being  settled  in 
Ireland  offered  a  magnetic  inducement  to  this  migration  ; 
and  all  that  she  met  with  on  her  tour  of  exploration  tended 
to  strengthen  her  incipient  purpose.  From  Dublin  she 
crossed  the  Channel  to  Holyhead,  and  travelled  through  the 
Island  of  Anglesea,  and  over  the  magnificent  Menai  Bridge, 
to  Sir  Henry  Browne's  place,  her  old  home  Bronwylfa.  Re- 
ferring to  this  journey  in  a  letter,  she  remarks :  "  I  strove 
in  vain  to  conjure  up  the  ghost  of  a  Druid,  or  even  of  a 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         457 

tree  on  its  (Anglesea's)  wide  mountainous  plains,  which  I 
ivully  think  nature  must  have  produced  to  rest  herself 
after  the  strong  excitement  of  composing  the  Caernarvon- 
shire hills.  But  I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  wanted  to 
express  my  feelings  when  at  last  that  bold  mountain-chain 
rose  upon  me  in  all  its  grandeur,  with  the  crowning 
Snowdon  (very  superior,  I  assure  you,  in  shape  and  feature 
to  our  friend  Ben  Lomond)  maintaining  his  pride  of  place 
above  the  whole  ridge ;  and  the  Menai  Bridge,  which  I 
thought  I  should  scarcely  have  noticed  in  the  presence  of 
those  glorious  heights,  really  seems  from  its  magnificence 
a  native  feature  of  the  scene,  and  nobly  asserts  the  pre- 
eminence of  mind  above  all  other  things."  * 

At  Bronwylfa,  her  old  Welsh  neighbours  flocked  around 
her,  entreating  her  with  tears  to  come  back  and  live  among 
them  again  :  old  recollections,  too,  thronged  thickly  upon 
her,  and  she  returned  from  thence  to  Wavertree  with 
spirits  agitated  by  alternating  emotions,  and  a  frame  ex- 
hausted by  excitement  and  fatigue.  A  winter  of  frequent 
illnesses  and  elastic  recoveries,  of  fitful  gaiety  and  sadness, 
of  solitary  musing  and  sociable  exertions,  followed.  She 
wrote  many  letters  and  a  few  poems,  read  such  books  as 
chanced  to  fall  under  her  notice,  applied  with  fresh  dili- 
gence to  the  study  of  music,  composed  airs  to  several  of 
her  own  songs,  entered  when  she  could  into  everything 
notably  intellectual  or  artistic  which  varied  the  passing 
pageants  of  the  day ;  and  prepared  meanwliile  for  carrying 
out  the  plan  of  household  removal  which  her  elder  brother's 
approbation  had  determined  her  to  adopt. 

Besides  the  poems  already  alluded  to,  some  other  pieces, 
and  numerous  songs,  which  she  wrote  at  Wavertree,  there 
are  four  which  bear  distinct  marks  of  their  local  origin : 
*  *  Memorials,'  vol  ii.,  pp.  1H8-9. 


458  LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

one,  *  To  a  Wandering  Female  Singer,'  suggested  by  hear- 
ing the  sweet  voice  of  a  vagrant  in  the  street ;  another, 
the  immortal  '  Books  and  Flowers/  which  took  form  in  the 
congenial  atmosphere  of  Wavertree  Hall ;  '  The  Haunted 
House ' ;  and  the  somewhat-overpraised  <  O'Connor's  Child,' 
which  describes  a  picture  belonging  to  Mrs.  Lawrence. 
That  picture  represents  the  heroine  of  Campbell's  poem 
of  the  same  title ;  and  Mrs.  Hemans  having,  in  fact,  made 
a  partial  translation  of  the  story  back  into  verse,  has  wasted 
some  original  and  admirable  touches  upon  a  dilution  and 
a  superfluity. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  month  of  April,  1831,  Mrs. 
Hemans,  with  her  three  younger  sons,  finally  quitted 
Liverpool  for  Dublin.  Arriving  in  that  city,  she  spent 
several  weeks  among  kind  and  hospitable  friends,  and  in 
June  passed  on  to  the  Hermitage,  near  Kilkenny,  the 
temporary  residence  of  her  second  brother  and  his  wife. 
From  thence  she  made  an  excursion  one  day  to  Wood- 
stock, where  Mr.  and  Lady  Louisa  Tighe  had  assembled 
the  principal  families  of  the  neighbourhood  to  meet  her, 
and  where  she  found  among  the  guests  Mr.  Henry  Tighe, 
the  widower  of  the  poetess.  It  has  been  already  men- 
tioned (at  page  264)  that  Mrs.  Hemans  recorded  in  verse 
her  visit  on  this  occasion  to  the  grave  of  the  author  of 
'  Psyche,'  and  that  she  afterwards  wrote  a  very  beautiful 
sonnet  on  the  '  Kecords  of  Immature  Genius,'  which  were 
lent  to  her  in  manuscript  for  perusal.  Her  '  Lines  for  the 
Album  at  Kosanna'  are  likewise  full  of  feeling.  Mr. 
Henry  Tighe  paid  her  the  scholar-like  compliment  of 
translating  into  Latin  *  The  Graves  of  a  Household.' 

Mrs.  Hemans  visited  all  the  principal  mansions,  and  all 
the  most  remarkable  places  around  Kilkenny  ;  and  being 
soothed  by  the  pleasant  rural  scenery,  the  view  of  distant 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  459 

mountains,  and  the  comfort  of  the  fraternal  roof,  settled 
<li»\vn  once  more  to  the  study  of  books  with  the  same 
interest  as  she  used  to  do  in  Wales.  The  original  poems 
and  letters  of  Coleridge,  before  unknown  to  her,  particu- 
larly engaged  her  attention  at  this  time ;  and,  taken  in 
connection  with  the  impressive  remembrance  of  Words- 
worth's serene  contentment,  practically  exemplified  in  his 
every-day  life,  as  well  as  poetically  enunciated,  they 
tended,  together  with  the  beneficial  influence  already 
obtained  over  her  mind  by  the  pious  wisdom  of  some  of 
her  kindest  friends  in  Dublin,  to  restore  the  calm  tone 
which  desolating  affliction  had  jarred,  and  to  brighten, 
elevate,  and  sustain,  her  devotional  feelings.  Here  she 
wrote  the  *  Death-song  of  Alcestis,'  which  was  first  printed 
in  'The  Amulet:'  here  also  she  wrote  many  other  lyrics 
and  songs. 

Early  in  the  autumn,  she  returned  to  her  lodgings  in 
Upper  Pembroke  Street,  Dublin.  There,  within  a  morn- 
ing drive  of  romantic  and  secluded  scenery,  exempted 
from  the  perturbations  of  housekeeping,  freed  from  com- 
pulsive association  with  the  ill-bred  and  uncultured, 
inured  to  celebrity,  resigned  to  occasional  sacrifices  of 
leisure  and  inclination,  and  to  the  acceptance  of  homage 
politely  rendered,  Mrs.  Hemans,  seeking  more  intently 
than  ever  that  peace  which  the  world  can  neither  impart 
nor  destroy,  now  entered  upon  a  new  epoch  of  literary 
usefulness. 

Her  presence  was  welcomed  in  the  highest  circles ;  and 
at  home  there  immediately  closed  around  her  a  choice 
band  of  friends,  attracted  by  kindred  qualities,  and 
attached  by  mutual  esteem.  Among  these  shone  the 
Archbishop  and  Mrs.  Whately,  Sir  William  Hamilton 
and  his  family,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Perceval,  the  Graves'  family, 


460  \LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  the  brother  of  Mrs.  Lawrence,  Colonel  D'Aguilar  and 
his  wife. 

Attendance  upon  several  performances  of  Paganini 
during  the  musical  festival  held  that  autumn  in  the  Irish 
metropolis,  afforded  her  extreme  and  almost  rapturous 
delight.  She  subsequently  indulged  herself  with  an  ex- 
cursion of  several  weeks  into  the  county  of  Wicklow,  and 
explored,  with  the  sure-footed  alertness  of  a  true  moun- 
taineer, the  curious  ecclesiastical  remains,  the  rocks  and 
glens,  the  lakes  and  waterfalls.  Continual  exposure  to 
wet  weather  during  these  investigations  was  in  itself 
sufficient  to  counteract  any  benefit  she  might  have  gained 
from  exercise  in  the  open  air,  and  the  attentions  which 
she  received  wherever  she  went  were  also  injurious,  for 
they  stimulated  her  spirits  to  over-exertion,  which  sent 
her  back  wearied  and  worn  down  to  Dublin.  About  this 
period  the  portrait  of  her — from  which  the  frontispiece  to 
Mr.  H.  F.  Chorley's  *  Memorials'  has  since  been  en- 
graved— was  painted  in  that  city  by  Mr.  Kobertson. 

In  a  letter  dated  December  9, 1831,  Mrs.  Hemans  makes 
the  following  reference  to  Miss  Jewsbury : — "  I  am  very 
sorry  to  say  that  she  is  soon  going  to  India,  in  which 
country  Mr.  Fletcher  has  obtained  a  chaplaincy.  One 
can,  indeed,  ill  afford  to  lose  a  friend  in  this  cold,  harsh 
world,  more  especially  a  gifted  friend.  How  few  have  the 
least  influence  over  one's  feelings  or  imagination  !  I  was 

truly  concerned  to  hear  of  Mr. 's  death,  for  I  felt  how 

much  you  would  lose  in  him ;  and  it  is  not  easy  for  re- 
fined characters  to  attach  themselves  anew.  Life  has  few 
companions  for  the  delicate-minded."  * 

In  a  letter  dated  April  18,  1832,  describing  herself  as 
recovering  from  a  low  fever,  she  adds : — "  I  think  I  should 
*  '  Memorials,1,  vol.  ii.,  p.  230. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND.  4()1 


rovivcd,  had  not  my  spirits  been  calmer  and 
n  iv  mind  happier  than  has  for  some  years  been  the  case. 
During  part  of  the  time,  when  I  could  neither  read  nor 
listen'to  reading,  I  lay  very  meekly  upon  the  sofa,  reciting 
to  myself  almost  all  the  poetry  I  ever  read.     I  composed 
t  wo  or  three  melodies  also  ;  but  having  no  one  here  who 
could  help  me  to  catch  the  fugitives,  they  have  taken 
flight  irrecoverably  ......  I  have  lately  written  what  I 

consider  one  of  my  best  pieces,  *  A  Poet's  Dying  Hymn.'  "* 

Her  judgment  of  her  own  compositions  is  usually  cor- 
i*ect.  She  here  refers  to  one  of  the  most  exalted  strains 
of  triumphant  piety  ever  raised  by  a  female  voice  since  the 
days  of  the  Women  of  Israel.  To  its  devotional  and  poetic 
value,  it  adds  a  biographical  claim  upon  human  interest* 
as  a  record  of  the  sincerity  and  ever-increasing  earnestness 
with  which  her  life  and  genius  had  been  consecrated  to 
God's  service. 

Her  sister,  mentioning  this  poem  as  the  first  utterance 
of  those  presentiments  of  death  which  frequent  illnesses 
and  a  failing  constitution  must  long  before  have  suggested 
to  Mrs.  Hemans,  and  as  a  striking  manifestation  of  "  that 
subdued  and  serene  state  of  mind  into  which  her  once 
vivacious  temperament  and  painfully-vibrating  sensibilities 
were  now  so  gently  and  happily  subsiding,"  remarks  that  — 
"A  delight  in  sacred  literature,  and  particularly  in  the 
writings  of  our  old  divines,  became  from  henceforward  her 
predominant  taste  ;  and  her  earnest  and  diligent  study  of 
the  Scriptures  was  a  well-spring  of  daily  increasing 
comfort."  t 

About  this  period  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Hemans  was  deeply 
and  gratefully  touched  by  a  visit  from  a  stranger,  who 
came  for  the  sole  purpose  of  offering  to  her  his  fervent 

*  'Memoir,'  p.  254;  and  'Memorials,'  vol.  ii.,  p.  247. 
f  '  Memoir,'  p.  254. 


462  LITERAKY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

acknowledgments  for  conversion  from  infidelity  by  means 
of '  The  Sceptic.' 

In  the  spring  and  summer  of  the  same  year,  when 
cholera  was  devastating  the  city,  and  black  covered  litters 
carrying  patients  to  the  hospitals,  and  biers  bearing  corpses 
to  the  grave,  were  passing  with  awful  frequency  through 
the  streets,  her  letters  express  the  solemn  composure  of 
her  soul,  her  childlike  dependence  upon  the  care  of  God, 
and  her  unreserved  submission  to  His  will. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year,  suffering  much  from 
nervous  acuteness  of  sensation,  and  especially  in  the  sense 
of  hearing,  she  removed  her  lodging  to  back  rooms  at 
No.  36,  Stephen's  Green,  and  from  thence  shortly  after- 
wards to  20,  Dawson  Street. 

Although  she  could  no  longer  find  enjoyment  in  her 
own  harp  and  piano,  yet  from  the  performances  of  eminent 
musicians,  who  occasionally  visited  Dublin,  she  derived 
much  gratification ;  and  the  choral  music  of  St.  Patrick's 
Cathedral  gave  her  intense  delight  whenever  her  fluctu- 
ating health  allowed  of  her  attending  Divine  service  there. 
A  set  of  verses,  their  introductory  heading,  and  an  appro- 
priate motto  from  Milton,  form  a  durable  memorial  of 
those  hours  of  devout  ecstasy. 

The  death  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  which  occurred  in 
September,  affected  her  deeply,  and  his  ' Funeral  Day' 
forms  the  subject  of  one  of  the  most  impressive  and  beau- 
tiful sacred  poems  she  ever  wrote.  The  three  concluding 
stanzas  of  the  hymn  with  which  it  closes  are  very  striking, 
and  the  two  last  more  especially : — 

"  By  Him,  who  bowed  to  take 
The  death-cup  for  our  sake, 

The  thorn,  the  rod ; 
From  whom  the  last  dismay 
Was  not  to  pass  away, 

Aid  us,  oh  God  ! 


UTKHAKY    WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  463 

Tremblers  beside  tho  grave, 
We  call  on  theo  to  save, 

Father  divine ! 

II<  ar,  hear  our  suppliant  breath, 
Keep  us  in  life  and  death, 

Thine,  only  thine  !  " 

This  is  the  language  of  immortal  hope,  uttered  with  the 
energy  of  mortal  agony. 

Bather,  perhaps,  from  excessive  delicacy  of  taste,  than 
from  moral  conviction  or  religious  principle,  her  pleasure 
in  theatrical  exhibitions  had  long  been  almost  extinct: 
nevertheless,  in  December,  1832,  impelled  by  gratitude  to 
a  true  and  zealous  friend,  she  attended,  at  the  Theatre 
Royal,  Dublin,  the  first  representation  of  Colonel  D'Agui- 
lar's  translation  of  Schiller's  tragedy  of  *  Fiesco.' 

The  ridiculous  manner  in  which  her  appropriate  and 
elegant  prologue  was  delivered,  by  an  actor  who  waved  a 
cocked  hat  as  an  emphatic  accompaniment,  and  the  undig- 
nified effect  produced  in  the  closing  scene  by  the  hero 
tumbling  down,  annoyed  her  greatly. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1833,  her  constitution  again 
rallied,  although  it  was  a  season  to  her  both  of  painful  and 
pleasurable  emotion,  her  third  son  embarking,  by  his  own 
free  choice,  for  America,  there  to  enter  upon  a  mercantile 
course ;  and  her  second  son,  who  had  returned  from  the 
Military  College  of  Soreze,  being  employed  upon  the  staff 
of  the  Ordnance  Survey  in  Ireland. 

Sometimes  the  irregular  pulsation  of  the  heart,  and  the 
flush  of  blood  to  the  head,  from  which  she  suffered,  dis- 
abled her  for  many  weeks  together  from  using  a  pen,  and 
obliged  her  to  have  recourse  to  an  amanuensis  or  a  pencil ; 
but  whenever  the  disorder  abated,  all  her  benevolent  and 
unceasing  interest  in  distant  friends  flowed  forth  afresh  in 
letters  of  animated  inquiry  and  eloquent  communication, 
and  often  in  laborious  and  self-denying  acts  of  service. 


464  LITERAEY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

In  the  summer  of  1833,  she  made  another  excursion 
into  the  county  of  Wicklow,  attended  only  by  her  maid, 
and  in  the  strictest  privacy,  seeking  only  the  revival  of 
health  in  the  quiet  enjoyment  of  leisure,  amid  fresh  air 
and  mountain  scenery. 

,  In  the  autumn  of  1833,  the  Eev.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hughes, 
the  brother-in-law  and  sister  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  whom  she 
had  not  seen  for  five  years,  came  to  Dublin.  Her  sister 
noticed  with  pain  the  worn  and  altered  looks  which  time, 
care,  and  sickness,  had  rapidly  wrought,  but  found  her 
affections  warm,  her  spirits  good,  her  memory  more  richly 
fraught,  her  genius  in  more  powerful  action,  and  her  heart 
more  serenely  and  intently  set  upon  high  and  holy  enter- 
prises than  ever.  The  sisters  parted  with  cheerful  antici- 
pations of  meeting  again  in  the  following  summer,  both 
intending  to  visit  Westmorland,  and  hoping  to  rejoice 
together  among  its  lakes  and  mountains. 

Mrs.  Hemans  had  projected  a  series  of  critical  com- 
mentaries and  translated  passages  from  the  best  German 
authors ;  and  having,  in  pursuance  of  this  intention,  com- 
pleted a  paper  upon  the  '  Tasso '  of  Goethe,  she  sent  it  to 
the  'New  Monthly  Magazine,'  and  it  appeared  in  the 
number  for  January,  1834. 

Her  introductory  remarks  on  the  character,  preparation, 
and  mission  of  a  poet,  and  on  the  sources  and  subjects 
which  most  worthily  cherish  and  employ  poetic  power, 
spring  from  the  depths  of  her  own  experience,  and  agree 
with  the  axioms  of  the  greatest  masters  of  the  art.  Both 
the  commentary  and  the  translations  evince  discriminating 
taste  and  rare  ability.  It  is  probable,  however,  that 
instead  of  the  moral  which  she  draws  from  the  drama, 
inferring  that  Goethe  desired  to  show  the  danger  of  the 
poet  soiling  his  singing-robes  with  worldly  dust,  Goethe, 


LITEKAKY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  465 

who  was  in  reality  a  man  of  the  world,  an  adroit  courtier, 
and  an  astute  diplomatist,  as  well  as  a  poet,  sought,  in  the 
exuberance  of  his  vanity,  to  aggrandize  the  better-adjusted 
proportions  of  his  own  inferior  character,  by  strongly 
delineating  the  one-sidedness  of  Tasso's. 

This  was  the  only  paper  which  she  ever  finished  of  the 
purposed  series.  The  fragment  of  another, '  On  the  Iphi- 
genia  of  Goethe/  written  in  the  same  style,  possesses  great 
merit.  These  'Studies'  wholly  agree  with  the  thoughts 
and  feelings  expressed  in  all  her  poetry,  but  there  they 
flow  out  freely,  scattered,  like  wild  flowers,  in  natural 
utterance ;  here,  under  the  forced  labour  of  disquisition, 
they  glitter  like  gems  artificially  cut  and  set. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1834,  her  '  Hymns  for 
Childhood/  a  small  volume  which  had  previously  appeared 
in  America,  was  republished  in  Dublin,  where  her  collected 
'  National  Lyrics  and  Songs  for  Music '  soon  afterwards 
carne  out.  From  a  note  in  the  '  Works/  vol.  vii.,  p.  102, 
it  would  seem  that  the  '  Songs  of  a  Guardian  Spirit, 
Songs  of  Spain,  Songs  for  Summer  Hours,  and  Songs  of 
Captivity/  which  precede  it,  under  the  general  heading  of 
'Lyrics/  were  the  'Songs  for  Music'  alluded  to  in  the 
title-page  of  that  publication. 

Under  the  name  of  '  National  Lyrics '  there  are  but  half 
a  dozen  pieces,  of  which  the  first,  entitled  '  The  Themes  of 
Song/  is  the  only  one  of  remarkable  excellence.  The  first 
division  of  the  '  Lyrics '  is  full  of  that  gentle  and  solemn 
sentiment  which  beseems  communion  with  the  unseen 
world.  In  the  second,  '  The  Curfew  Song  of  England '  is 
out  of  place ;  and  the  '  Spanish  Evening  Hymn '  carries  its 
sentimental  complaisance  so  far  as  to  re-echo  the  strain  of 
idolatrous  worship  to  the  Virgin  Mary.  The  third  affords, 
in  all  its  thirteen  Songs,  examples  of  lyric  beauty,  and 

2H 


466  LITEKARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

more  particularly  in  'The  Summer's  Call'  exhibits  a 
wonderful  assemblage  of  delightful  images,  and  charms  the 
ear  with  the  sweet,  rich  music  of  its  cadences. 

Among  the  forty-nine  pieces  included  in  the  fourth 
division,  *  The  Ivy  Song '  is  almost  a  duplicate,  many  are 
full  of  pathos,  and  all  breathe  the  spirit  of  genuine  poetry — 
the  original  and  peculiar  poetry  of  her  own  heart  and 
mind. 

Soon  after  the  two  volumes  just  mentioned,  Mrs.  Hemans 
published  her  *  Scenes  and  Hymns  of  Life,  and  other 
Religious  Poems.'  The  fire  which  had  hitherto  lighted 
and  warmed  the  dwelling-place,  here  spreads  forth  and 
brightens  into  the  consuming  flame  of  the  sacrificial  altar. 
There  is  growing  intensity  of  purpose  in  these  poems. 
The  sensuous  imagery  is  but  an  indicative  accessory  of 
deep  meanings,  not  merely,  as  of  old,  a  series  of  important 
symbols  forming  prominent  objects  of  attention.  Several 
of  the  finest  poems  have  previously  been  noticed  under  the 
dates  of  composition. 

'  The  English  Martyrs '  is  surcharged  too  deeply  with 
human  tenderness,  and  amid  the  calm  sweetness  of  devout 
resignation  to  a  heavenly  Father  and  dependence  on  a 
pitying  Saviour,  the  poem  wants  a  more  distinct  recogni- 
tion and  exhibition  of  the  consoling  and  spiritualising 
influences  of  the  Divine  Comforter. 

In  the  'Wood  Walk  and  Hymn'  the  descriptions  of 
woodland  scenery  and  plants  are  exact :  but  the  style  is 
too  obviously  Wordsworthian,  and  the  Wood  Hymn  quite 
unsuitable  for  the  use  of  any  child,  however  intelligent. 

The  poem  called  *  Flowers  and  Music  in  a  Eoom  of 
Sickness '  is  full  of  the  most  exquisite  rural  images,  and 
brings  them  almost  within  sight,  and  touch,  and  inhaling. 
Like  that  balmy  softness  of  air,  however,  and  that  extreme 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  467 

transparency  of  atmosphere,  which  precede  rain,  indications 
<>f  a  too  sensitive  temperament  under  the  influence  of  hope- 
less malady  touch  these  lovely  pictures  with  oppressive 
melancholy,  and  give  to  their  harmonious  rhythm  the 
music  of  a  dirge. 

AVhen  marking  out  the  distinctive  features  which  cha- 
racterise the  modes  of  teaching  adopted  by  St.  Paul  and 
by  St.  John,  in  illustration  of  the  manifold  ways  in  which 
the  Sacred  Scriptures  are  suited  to  the  innumerable  wants 
of  innumerable  human  hearts,  theologians  show  that  the 
system  of  St.  John  begins  with  the  announcement  of  God's 
love,  and  delineates  the  soul's  gentle  transition  from  the 
deadness  of  sin  to  the  vital  energy  of  holiness ;  knowledge 
of  sin  and  sorrow  for  sin  running  parallel,  as  it  were,  with 
the  experience  of  forgiving  mercy  and  the  renewal,  aid, 
and  consolation  of  the  Divine  Convictor  and  Comforter, 
followed  by  the  abiding  rest  of  the  soul,  through  faith  in 
the  Saviour,  upon  the  love  of  God  the  Father.  Such 
seems  to  have  been  the  process  by  which  Mrs.  Hemans 
was  conducted  through  the  world's  tribulations  to  the 
attainment  of  the  peace  of  God,  and  to  the  formation  of 
His  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  joy  within  her  subdued 
and  thankful  heart.  Slowly  at  first,  rapidly  at  last,  the 
work  of  probation  was  accomplished,  and  her  spirit  made 
ready  for  the  celestial  abode  of  the  blessed. 

On  the  8th  of  May,  1834,  writing  from  Dublin  to  a 
friend  who  had  offered  to  give  up  to  her  a  project  of 
writing  *  Tales  of  Art/  which  he  believed  to  be  consonant 
with  her  taste  and  suited  to  her  genius,  she  said: — "I 
could  not,  however,  for  many  reasons  avail  myself  of  this 
sacrifice  on  your  part,  my  dear  friend.  I  have  now  passed 
through  the  feverish  and  somewhat  visionary  state  of  mind 
often  connected  with  the  passionate  study  of  art  in  early 

2  H  2 


468  LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND. 

life ;  deep  affections  and  deep  sorrows  seem  to  have 
solemnised  my  whole  being,  and  I  now  feel  as  if  bound  to 
higher  and  holier  tasks,  which,  though  I  may  occasionally 
lay  aside,  I  could  not  long  wander  from  without  some  sense 
of  dereliction.  I  am  sure  you  can  well  understand,  and  will 
not  fail  to  enter  into  all  this.  I  hope  it  is  no  self-delusion, 
but  I  cannot  help  sometimes  feeling  as  if  it  were  my  true 
task  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  sacred  poetry  and  extend 
its  influence.  When  you  receive  my  volume  of  '  Scenes 
and  Hymns '  you  will  see  what  I  mean  by  enlarging  its 
sphere,  though  my  plans  are  yet  imperfectly  developed."  * 
Keferring  to  the  same  high  purpose  in  another  letter, 
written  within  the  same  week,  she  adds : — "  I  regard  it, 
however,  as  an  undertaking  to  be  carried  on  and  thoroughly 
wrought  out  during  several  years,  as  the  more  I  look  for 
indications  of  the  connection  between  the  human  spirit 
and  its  Eternal  Source,  the  more  extensively  I  see  those 
traces  open  before  me,  and  the  more  indelibly  they  appear 
stamped  upon  our  mysterious  nature.  I  cannot  but  think 
that  my  mind  has  both  expanded  and  strengthened  during 
the  contemplation  of  such  things,  and  that  it  will  thus  by 
degrees  arise  to  a  higher  and  purer  sphere  of  action  than 
it  has  yet  known.  If  any  years  of  peace  and  affection  be 
granted  to  my  future  life,  I  think  I  may  prove  that  the 
discipline  of  storms  has,  at  least,  not  been  without  purify- 
ing and  ennobling  influence."  t 

In  accordance  with  these  principles,  she  wrote  the 
'  Female  Characters  of  Scripture,' — suggested  by  reading 
Mrs.  Sandford's  '  Woman,' — the  i  Sonnets  Devotional  and 
Memorial,'  and  all  her  subsequent  poems.  Among  those 
'  Sonnets,'  and  in  the  collection  of  pieces  entitled  t  Eecords 
of  the  Spring  of  1834,'  retrospection  speaks  in  varied  tones, 

*  Chorley's  'Memorials,'  vol.  ii.,  pp.  283-5.  f  Ibid.,  p.  286. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  Hi!) 

all  self-admonitory,  while  the  scenes  of  her  childhood,  and 
r\vii  the  trees  and  blossoms,  glow  around  her  in  vivid  yet 
tender  truthfulness,  and  her  genius  draws  up  from  their 
fragrance  fresh  dews  of  blessing.  Wordsworth's  description 
of  herself — 

"  Sweet  as  the  Spring,  as  ocean  deep," 

applies  to  all  these  poems. 

Later  in  the  same  spring  she  learned  the  afflicting  news 
of  her  friend  Mrs.  Fletcher's  death,  and  her  health  suffered 
from  the  shock,  which  heavily  depressed  her  spirits.  She 
was  able,  however,  at  this  period  to  go  about  a  little  with 
her  acquaintance,  and  on  the  3rd  of  July  she  enjoyed  with 
pensive  pleasure  a  day's  excursion  to  Lough  Bray.  Ap- 
plying, with  a  saddened  heart,  and  with  energy  too  great 
for  her  enfeebled  strength,  to  the  arrangement  of  business 
and  to  the  working  up  of  the  arrears  of  her  over-burdening 
correspondence,  her  fever  returned,  and  a  state  of  physical 
prostration  ensued,  which  frustrated  the  main  object  of  her 
exertions,  and  put  a  hopeless  end  to  her  Westmorland 
expectations.  As  soon  as  she  was  sufficiently  recovered  to 
leave  Dublin  on  a  short  journey,  she  again  paid  a  lonely 
visit  to  the  county  of  Wicklow,  where  certain  favourite 
spots  among  the  mountains  reminded  her  of  Wales,  and 
the  air  seemed  native.  Unfortunately,  there  was  scarlet 
fever  at  the  little  country  inn  where  she  put  up,  both 
herself  and  her  maid  caught  the  infection,  and,  after  many 
weeks  of  weary  suffering,  returned  convalescent  to  Dublin. 
A  few  days  subsequently  spent  at  Redesdale  with  the 
Archbishop  and  Mrs.  Whately  and  a  few  intellectual 
friends  cheered  her  worn  spirits,  revived  her  health,  and 
enabled  her  once  more  on  returning  home  to  enter,  though 
with  effort,  upon  her  ordinary  occupations.  In  a  letter, 
dated  September  18,  1834,  describing  the  'Prigione'  of 


470  LITEBAKY  WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND. 

Silvio  Pellico,  and  referring  to  the  "  brightening  of  heart 
and  soul  into  the  perfect  day  of  Christian  excellence, 
through  all  those  fiery  trials,"  she  remarks,  "  When  the 
weary  struggle  with  wrong  and  injustice  leads  to  such 
results,  I  then  feel  that  the  fearful  mystery  of  life  is  solved 
forme."* 

"  For  those  green  heights  of  dewy  stillness  yearning, 
Whence  glorious  minds  o'erlook  this  earth's  unrest," 

Mrs.  Hemans  turned  again  with  the  joy  of  invigorated  life 
to  the  pursuit  of  poetic  excellence.  The  pieces  bearing 
the  general  heading  of  *  Eecords  of  the  Autumn  of  1834 ' 
are  elevated  in  tone,  pure  in  style,  admirable  in  versifica- 
tion, and  worthy  of  attentive  study  as  models  of  feminine 
composition. 

Her  medical  attendants  urging  Mrs.  Hemans  to  be  as 
much  as  possible  in  the  open  air,  she  used  often  to  sit 
alone  in  the  gardens  of  the  Dublin  Society,  at  the  hours 
when  those  gardens  were  least  frequented  by  company. 
Beading  there  one  evening,  and  engrossed  with  her  book, 
a  chilly  fog  imperceptibly  came  on,  and  only  aroused  her 
to  the  consciousness  of  its  malignant  presence  by  a  violent 
access  of  shivering.  That  very  night  ague  supervened, 
and  continued  for  many  weeks  its  alternate  attacks  and 
remissions.  Aware  that  her  constitution  had  broken  up 
and  no  longer  retained  sufficient  strength  to  repel  the 
attacks  of  any  malady,  she  felt  that  her  allotted  time  was 
short,  and  sedulously  availed  herself  of  every  possible 
opportunity  of  employing  her  genius  as  an  entrusted 
talent  to  be  laid  out  for  the  glory  of  God.  She  had  pre- 
viously commenced  the  ode  ( Despondency  and  Aspiration,' 
and  under  these  circumstances  she  dictated  its  completion, 
rendering  it,  perhaps,  the  finest  poem  ever  composed  by 

*  'Memorials,'  vol.  ii.,  pp.  306-7. 


LITEUAUY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         471 

an  uninspired  woman.  While  suffering  from  the  same 
malady,  she  likewise  dictated  the  series  of  beautiful 
sonnets,  entitled  *  Thoughts  During  Sickness,'  among 
which,  'Intellectual  Powers/  'Sickness  like  Night/  and 
'  The  Flight  of  the  Spirit/  claim  pre-eminence  for  truthful 
and  intense  poetic  energy.  A  writer's  best  and  most 
original  thoughts  usually  arise  out  of  the  experience  and 
personal  history  of  the  individual.  Thus  it  was  with  Mrs. 
Hemans ;  and  with  these  last  and  noblest  exercises  of  her 
intellect  the  resonance  of  versification  was  complete. 

Clinging  to  every  faint  hope  of  restoration  or  alleviation, 
her  friendly  physicians,  although  winter  was  already  setting 
in,  recommended  change  of  air.  The  Archbishop  and  Mrs. 
Whately  were  then  inhabiting  their  residence  in  the  city 
of  Dublin,  and,  with  hospitable  benevolence,  they  placed 
their  country  home,  with  all  its  comforts,  at  the  disposal  of 
Mrs.  Hemans.  Eedesdale,  or  "  The  Palace,"  as  she  liked, 
in  fond  remembrance  of  the  episcopal  dwelling  at  St. 
Asaph,  to  call  it,  was  only  seven  miles  distant,  and  thither, 
early  in  December,  she  was  removed,  attended  only  by  her 
faithful  maid,  Anna  Creer,  and  accompanied  by  her  two 
younger  sons ;  Mrs.  Whately,  and  other  anxious  and 
considerate  friends,  driving  out  frequently  to  see  her  and 
watch  over  her.  At  first,  some  mitigation  of  her  most 
distressing  symptoms  took  place,  the  energetic  mind  still 
exerting  that  marvellous  power  over  the  body  which  re- 
tards at  intervals  the  progress  of  disease,  though  ultimately, 
perhaps,  to  accelerate  decay.  Possessing  with  augmented 
power  all  her  fine  natural  qualities  and  acquirements,  and 
more  than  ever  capable  of  enjoying  summer  for  its  own 
sake,  and  winter  because  it  threw  the  mind  upon  its  own 
resources,  a  calm  had  descended  upon  her  like  that  which 
settles  at  eve  upon  a  summer  landscape.  The  still n 


472  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  flowers,  the  peace  around  her,  and  the  peace  of  God 
within,  rendered  this  sojourn  to  her  what  good  old  Bunyan 
would  have  quaintly  termed  a  land  of  Beulah.  She  tran- 
quilly reviewed  her  whole  life — the  salutary  effects  of  its 
severe  discipline,  the  methods  of  Divine  Providence,  Ke- 
demption,  Grace>  all  passed  before  her.  In  speaking  on 
such  topics  with  her  attached  servant,  and  expatiating  on 
the  kindness  and  human  sympathy  of  the  Divine  Saviour, 
Mrs.  Hemans  used  to  say,  with  most  literal  and  touching 
truth,  "  I  am  like  a  quiet  babe  at  his  feet,  and  yet  my 
heart  is  full  of  his  strength."  * 

The  death  of  her  friend,  Mr.  J.  C.  Graves,  at  this  time 
affected  her  very  sensibly,  and  she  particularly  regretted 
her  own  inability  to  solace  and  assist  the  bereaved  daugh- 
ters with  her  presence.  In  a  letter  of  affectionate  condo- 
lence, which  she  exerted  herself  to  write  to  one  of  them,  a 
very  remarkable  paragraph  occurs  : — "  Few  can  more 
deeply  enter  into  all  you  have  suffered  than  myself,  in 
whose  mind  the  deathbed  scene  of  my  beloved  and  ex- 
cellent mother  is  still  as  mournfully  distinct  as  the  week 
when  that  bereavement  occurred,  which  threw  me  to 
struggle  upon  a  harsh  and  bitter  world.  But,  dearest  C., 
there  comes  a  time  when  we  feel  that  God  has  drawn  us 
nearer  to  himself  by  the  chastening  influence  of  such 
trials,  and  when  we  thankfully  acknowledge  that  a  higher 
state  of  spiritual  purification,  the  great  object,  I  truly 
believe,  of  all  our  earthly  discipline,  has  been  the  blessed 
result  of  our  calamities.  I  am  sure  that  in  your  pure  and 
pious  mind  this  result  will  ere  long  take  place,  and  that  a 
deep  and  reconciling  calm  will  follow  the  awakening  sense 
of  God's  parental  dealings  with  the  spirit."  f 

One  day  in  February,  1835,  when  the  responsions  of  the 

*  'Memoir,'  p.  293.  t  Ibid.,  P-  294. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  473 

robins,  to  which  she  liked  to  listen,  were  giving  way  to 
the  sawyer  notes  of  the  black-headed  titmouse,  Mrs. 
Hemans,  being  still  at  Eedesdale,  was  aroused  from  the 
weary  and  almost  lethargic  languor  of  repose  by  the 
arrival  of  an  unexpected  letter,  such  a  letter  as  she  might 
in  her  childhood's  days  of  illusive  hope  have  imagined 
would  arrive  to  alleviate  a  mother's  solicitude  and  open  a 
new  and  honourable  path  to  independence.  It  came  from 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  had  attained  for  the  first  time  the 
office  of  Prime  Minister  in  the  December  of  1834.  It 
rendered  gratifying  tribute  to  her  genius  and  her  public 
services,  and  it  bestowed  the  appointment  to  a  clerkship 
in  the  Admiralty  upon  her  fourth  son,  enclosing  a  cheque 
for  100?.  to  defray  the  expenses  of  his  outfit.  Electrified 
by  this  good  fortune,  full  of  gratitude  to  Divine  Providence, 
to  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  and  to  the  unknown  agent  whose 
benevolent  intercession  had  obtained  the  welcome  boon, 
while  rejoicing  in  deliverance  from  a  burdensome  care, 
and  in  the  safe  prospects  of  her  boy,  her  health  received  a 
favourable  impulse,  her  spirits  revived,  and  both  to  herself 
and  others  her  recovery  once  more  seemed  possible. 
Surprise  did  not  subsequently  await  the  discovery  that  she 
owed  this  great  obligation  to  the  ever  active  kindness  of 
her  friend  at  Wavertree  Hall. 

Referring  to  this  event  in  one  of  the  last  letters  which 
she  ever  wrote  to  anybody,  addressed  to  Mrs.  Lawrence, 
Mrs.  Hemans  says : — "  Well,  my  dear  friend,  I  hope  my 
life,  if  it  be  spared,  may  now  flow  back  into  its  course  of 
quiet  thoughtfulness.  You  know  in  how  rugged  a  channel 
the  poor  little  stream  has  been  forced,  and  through  what 
rocks  it  has  wrought  its  way,  and  it  is  now  longing  for 
repose  in  some  still  valley.  It  has  ever  been  one  of  my 
regrets  that  the  constant  necessity  of  providing  sums  of 


474  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

money  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  boys'  education  has 
obliged  me  to  waste  my  mind  in  what  I  consider  mere 
desultory  effusions : — 

'  Pouring  myself  away, 
As  a  wild  bird  amid  the  foliage  turns 
That  which  within  him  thrills,  and  beats,  and  burns, 
Into  a  fleeting  lay.' 

My  wish  ever  was  to  concentrate  all  my  mental  energy 
in  the  production  of  some  more  noble  and  complete  work ; 
something  of  pure  and  holy  excellence  (if  there  be  not  too 
much  presumption  in  the  thought)  which  might  perma- 
nently take  its  place  as  the  work  of  a  British  poetess. 
I  have  always,  hitherto,  written  as  if  in  the  breathing- 
times  of  storms  and  billows.  Perhaps  it  may  not  even 
yet  be  too  late  to  accomplish  what  I  wish,  though  I  some- 
times feel  my  health  so  deeply  prostrated  that  I  cannot 
imagine  how  I  am  ever  to  be  raised  up  again.  But  a 
greater  freedom  from  those  cares,  of  which  I  have  been 
obliged  to  bear  up  under  the  whole  responsibility,  may  do 
much  to  restore  me ;  and  though  my  spirits  are  greatly 
subdued  by  long  sickness,  I  feel  the  powers  of  my  mind  in 
full  maturity."  * 

These  noble  designs  were  not  destined  to  be  realised. 
The  mental  stress  imposed  on  her  weak  frame  had  been 
too  great  for  long  endurance  ;  reaction  took  place,  and 
unequivocal  symptoms  of  imminent  danger  showed  them- 
selves in  a  form  which  utterly  precluded  hope.  Ague 
gave  way  to  organic  disease,  and,  early  in  March,  acute 
suffering  and  the  weakness  of  exhaustion  required  her 
removal  to  Dawson  Street,  that  she  might  be  nearer  to 
her  medical  attendants.  Henceforth  she  left  her  room  no 
more,  and  was  only  lifted  daily  from  her  bed  to  a  sofa. 
Her  sister  and  other  relations  rallied  hastily  around  her, 

*  «  Memoir,'  pp.  296-7. 


LITEKARY  WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND.  475 

and  paid  her  every  attention  which  contributes  to  solace  a 
sensitive  sufferer.  Commiseration  she  did  not  need,  and 
she  always  checked  its  expression.  With  uncomplaining 
patience,  with  glad  submission,  she  passed  through  this 
aggravated  trial.  Her  faith  and  hope  were  securely  set 
beyond  the  dark  waves  and  shadows  of  mortality.  The 
Atonement  was  her  greatest  consolation,  and  the  favourite 
object  of  her  contemplation.  Her  mind  was  clear,  and 
free  from  gloom;  her  retentive  memory  enabled  her  to 
lie  for  hours  repeating  to  herself  chapters  of  the  Bible 
and  passages  from  Milton  and  Wordsworth.  Her  sleep 
was  calm,  and  she  asserted  that,  in  the  intervals  of  free- 
dom from  pain,  "  No  poetry  could  express,  nor  imagina- 
tion conceive,  the  visions  of  blessedness  that  flitted  across 
her  fancy,  and  made  her  waking  hours  more  delightful 
than  those  even  that  were  given  to  temporary  repose." 
She  sent  messages  of  exhortation  and  encouragement  to 
friends  whom  she  loved,  declaring  the  present  help  she 
was  deriving,  in  the  prospect  of  death,  from  Him  who  is 
the  Light  and  Life  of  the  world.  She  would  occasionally 
request  to  be  left  entirely  alone  and  in  darkness,  that,  un- 
disturbed by  sound  or  light,  she  might  hold  sacred  com- 
munion with  her  soul.  She  never  for  an  instant  forgot 
the  kindest  consideration  for  the  convenience  and  comfort 
of  those  around  her,  and,  in  short,  simply  and  earnestly 
endeavouring  in  all  things  to  obey  the  promptings  of  a 
heaven-directed  conscience,  she  unintentionally  and  un- 
obtrusively afforded  one  of  the  loveliest  examples  ever 
left  by  a  dying  Christian. 

When  casual  incidents  brought  back  past  times  to  her 
recollection,  she  would  talk  with  her  sister  of  G wrych, 
and  Bronwylfa,  and  Khyllon — delighting  especially  in  re- 
curring to  the  days  of  their  childhood,  their  haunts  and 


476         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

habits  and  innocent  pleasures,  and  describing  their  early 
home  at  Gwrych,  and  their  romantic  mountain  rambles, 
with  a  zest  plainly  proving,  if  proof  beyond  all  her  extant 
poetry  were  necessary,  how  deeply  her  intellectual  cha- 
racter had  been  tinctured  by  old  Cymru. 

She  never  in  her  life  before  had  been  so  serenely  and 
really  happy.  Gratitude  for  the  love  of  God  enhanced 
her  sense  of  human  kindness.  Flowers  and  edible  deli- 
cacies flowed  in  upon  her  incessantly,  from  friends,  ac- 
quaintance, and  strangers.  Flowers,  for  their  own  sake, 
she  valued  to  the  last,  and  the  kindness  of  the  donor  was 
always  felt,  however  trivial  the  token  might  be. 

Her  sufferings  became  less  acute  as  spring  advanced, 
and  her  active  mind,  recalling  with  delight  the  unseen 
revival  of  external  nature,  again  enlivened  her  feeble  and 
emaciated  frame  with  the  deceptive  appearance  of  return- 
ing convalescence.  She  used  to  have  a  little  table  set 
beside  her  bed  and  covered  with  books  relating  to  pic- 
turesque, and  especially  to  forest  scenery,  and  would 
sometimes  look  into  them,  or  have  passages  softly  read  to 
her.  The  poetry  of  Bowles,  well  known  to  her  in  youth  ; 
Wordsworth's  '  Yarrow  Kevisited  ;'  Willmott's  *  Lives  of 
the  Sacred  Poets ;'  and  '  The  Lives  of  Eminent  Chris- 
tians,' were  also  constantly  at  hand. 

Early  in  April  her  sister  was  summoned  away  by  the 
dangerous  illness  of  Mr.  Hughes,  and  she  took  leave  of 
Mrs.  Heinans  with  a  feeling  amounting  almost  to  hope 
that  they  yet  might  meet  again  in  this  world. 

Alternations  of  hectic  animation  and  prostrate  exhaus- 
tion continued  for  a  while,  and  she  sank  very  gradually. 
On  Sunday,  the  26th  of  April,  she  dictated  to  her  younger 
brother  the  verses  which  proved  to  be  her  last.  They 
form  an  integral  and  remarkable  part  of  her  history,  indi- 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.        477 

cate  the  treasured  wealth  of  her  memory,  the  power  of 
her  imagination,  and  the  sweet  stream  of  holy  thoughts 
which  flowed  incessantly  within.  She  called  these  verses 
her — 

SABBATH  SONNET. 

"  How  many  blessed  groups  this  hour  are  bending, 

Through  England's  primrose  meadow-paths  their  way 
Towards  spire  and  tower,  midst  shadowy  elms  ascending, 

Whence  the  sweet  chimes  proclaim  the  hallowed  day ! 
The  halls  from  old  heroic  ages  grey 

Pour  their  fair  children  forth ;  and  hamlets  low, 
With  whose  thick  orchard-blooms  the  soft  winds  play, 

Send  out  their  inmates  in  a  happy  flow, 
Like  a  freed  vernal  stream.     I  may  not  tread 

With  them  those  pathways— to  the  feverish  bed 
Of  sickness  bound  :  yet,  oh  my  God !  I  bless 

Thy  mercy,  that  with  Sabbath  peace  hath  filled 
My  chastened  heart,  and  all  its  throbbings  stilled 

To  one  deep  calm  of  lowliest  thankfulness  ! 

April  26,  1835." 

Upon  the  12th  of  May,  being  the  fourth  Sunday  after 
Easter,  she  was  able,  for  the  last  time,  to  read  to  herself 
the  appointed  Collect,  Epistle,  and  Gospel.  During  that 
week  a  heavy  and  weary  languor  oppressed  her,  and  some- 
times her  mind  slightly  wandered,  though  always  among 
lovely  and  pleasing  visions.  Dr.  Croker  used  to  read  to 
her  select  sentences  from  the  works  of  Archbishop  Leigh- 
ton,  and  to  the  last  she  listened  to  them  with  prayerful 
attention. 

She  slept  with  little  intermission  throughout  Saturday, 
the  16th  of  May,  and  at  nine  o'clock  that  evening,  while 
still  asleep,  her  happy  spirit  gently  passed  away. 

Her  mortal  remains  were  committed  to  a  vault  within 
the  church  of  St.  Anne,  Dublin ;  a  tablet,  placed  above 
the  spot  where  they  rest,  is  inscribed  with  her  name,  her 
age,  the  date  of  her  death,  and  the  eight  lines  of  a  dirge 
in  her  *  Siege  of  Valencia :' — 


478  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

"  Calm  on  the  bosom  of  thy  God, 

Fair  spirit,  rest  thee  now  ! 
E'en  while  with  us  thy  footsteps  trod, 

His  seal  was  on  thy  brow. 
Dust  to  its  narrow  house  beneath  ! 

Soul  to  its  place  on  high ! 
They  that  have  seen  thy  look  in  death, 

No  more  may  fear  to  die." 

The  tacit  homage  rendered  to  her  by  her  nearest  rela- 
tions is  very  expressive.  Beneath  the  engraved  miniature 
of  Mrs.  Browne  forming  the  frontispiece  to  the  seventh 
volume  of  Mrs.  Hemans's  Works,  stand  the  words  "  Mrs. 
Hemans's  Mother."  The  title-page  to  the  first  volume 
announces  '  A  Memoir  by  her  Sister,'  and  the  mural  tablet 
in  the  cathedral  of  St.  Asaph,  casting  into  abeyance  mili- 
tary and  knightly  honours,  records  that — 

"  This  tablet, 
Placed  here  by  her  Brothers, 

is  in  memory  of 

FELICIA   HEMANS; 

Whose  character  is  best  pourtrayed 

in  her  writings. 

She  died  in  Dublin,  May  16,  1835, 
Aged  41." 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  479 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

A.D.  1835.— PART  III. 

THE  POETESSES. 
Felicia-Dorothea  Hemans. 


If  my  soul's  utterance  hath  by  Thee  been  fraught 
With  an  awakening  power,  if  thou  liast  made, 

Like  the  winged  seed,  the  breathings  of  my  thought, 
And  by  the  swift  winds  bid  them  be  conveyed 

To  lands  of  other  lays,  and  there  become 

Native  as  early  melodies  of  home  : 

I  bless  Thee,  oh,  my  God!"* 


FELICIA-DOROTHEA  HEMANS. 

THE   character   drawn   of  Mrs.  Hemans   by   Mary-Jane 
Jewsbury  is  obviously  true : 

"  Egeria  was  totally  different  from  any  other  woman  I 
had  ever  seen  either  in  Italy  or  England.  She  did  not 
dazzle,  she  subdued  me.  Other  women  might  be  more 
commanding,  more  versatile,  more  acute  ;  but  I  never  saw 
one  so  exquisitely  feminine.  She  was  lovely  without 
being  beautiful ;  her  movements  were  features ;  and  if  a 
blind  man  had  been  privileged  to  pass  his  hand  over  the 
silken  length  of  hair — that  when  unbraided  flowed  round 
her  like  a  veil,  he  would  have  been  justified  in  expecting 
softness,  and  a  love  of  softness,  beauty,  and  a  perception  of 
beauty,  to  be  distinctive  traits  of  her  mind.  Nor  would  he 

*  'A  Poet's  Dying  Hymn,'  by  Mrs.  Hemans,  stanza  v. 


480  LITERARY   WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

have  been  deceived.  Her  birth,  her  education,  but,  above 
all,  the  genius  with  which  she  was  gifted,  combined  to 
inspire  a  passion  for  the  ethereal,  the  tender,  the  imagina- 
tive, the  heroic,  in  one  word,  the  beautiful.  It  was  in  her 
a  faculty  divine,  and  yet  of  daily  life,  it  touched  all  things  ; 
but,  like  a  sunbeam,  touched  them  with  a  golden  finger. 
Anything  abstract  or  scientific  was  unintelligible  and  dis- 
tasteful to  her ;  her  knowledge  was  extensive  and  various  ; 
but,  true  to  the  first  principle  of  her  nature,  it  was  poetry 
that  she  sought  in  history,  scenery,  character,  and  reli- 
gious belief — poetry  that  guided  all  her  studies,  governed 
all  her  thoughts,  coloured  all  her  conversation.  Her 
nature  was  at  once  simple  and  profound ;  there  was  no 
room  in  her  mind  for  philosophy,  or  in  her  heart  for  ambi- 
tion ;  one  was  filled  by  imagination,  the  other  engrossed 
by  tenderness.  Her  strength  and  her  weakness  alike  lay 
in  her  affections  :  these  would  sometimes  make  her  weep 
at  a  word,  at  others  imbue  her  with  courage,  so  that  she 
was  alternately  a  falcon-hearted  dove,  and  a  reed  shaken 
with  the  wind.  Her  voice  was  a  sad  sweet  melody ;  her 
spirits  reminded  me  of  an  old  poet's  description  of  the 
orange-tree  with  its 

'  Golden  lamps  hid  in  a  night  of  green/ 

or  of  those  Spanish  gardens,  where  the  pomegranate  grows 
beside  the  cypress.  Her  gladness  was  like  a  burst  of  sun- 
light ;  and  if  in  her  depression  she  resembled  night,  it  was 
night  wearing  her  stars.  I  might  describe  and  describe  for 
ever,  I  should  never  succeed  in  pourtraying  Egeria ;  she 
was  a  muse,  a  grace,  a  variable  child — a^dependent  woman 
— the  Italy  of  human  beings."  * 

This  spirited  and  able  delineation  requires  a  brief  and 
qualifying  commentary  upon  two  of  its  sentences. 

*  '  The  Three  Histories.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  481 

"Anything  abstract  or  scientific  was  unintelligible  and 
distasteful  to  her:  her  knowledge  was  extensive  and 
various,  but  it  was  poetry  that  she  sought  in  history,"  &c. 
"  There  was  no  room  in  her  mind  for  philoso- 
phy, nor  in  her  heart  for  ambition :  the  one  was  filled  by 
imagination,  the  other  engrossed  by  tenderness." 

To  use  a  comparison  of  Pascal's,  the  antitheses  in  these 
sentences  resemble  blank  windows  stuck  in  for  uniformity  : 
there  is  no  real  opposition  in  the  first  and  last  clauses  of 
either  proposition.  That  there  was  no  room  in  the  mind 
of  Mrs.  Hemans  for  philosophy  because  it  was  filled  with 
imagination  is  certainly  a  mistaken  assertion;  for  her 
imagination,  in  the  form  of  poetry,  was  itself  intuitive 
philosophy.  Truth  could  scarcely  be  announced  before 
her  mind  had  fully  penetrated  and  seized  upon  it :  though 
for  discursive  reasoning,  the  deduction  of  conclusions 
from  the  application  of  principles  to  facts,  she  had 
little  ability.  The  general  tenor  of  her  writings  was,  in 
truth,  philosophical,  serving  more  or  less  to  illustrate  the 
adaptation  of  external  nature  to  the  intellectual  and  moral 
constitution  of  man. 

Had  her  mind  been  directed,  and  studiously  bent  in 
youth  upon  the  works  of  Lord  Bacon  and  Bishop  Butler, 
and  even  upon  the  elementary  propositions  of  Euclid,  it 
would  probably  have  gained  an  equipoise  conducive  both  to 
intellectual  and  moral  strength. 

The  poetical  life  of  Mrs.  Hemans  divides  itself  into  four 
periods. 

First.  The  juvenile :  including  the  earliest  efforts  of  her 
childhood,  with  the  imitative  and  prelusive  strains  in 
various  styles,  chiefly  chivalrous,  which  she  poured  forth 
during  the  spring-time  of  her  existence. 

Second.  The  classic  :  when  her  taste  being  refined  and 

2  i 


482  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

set  by  the  pure  models  of  ancient  Greece,  her  natural 
utterance  was  in  some  degree  constrained  and  chilled. 

Third.  The  romantic :  when,  retaining  all  the  correct- 
ness of  classic  types,  the  exuberant  richness  of  her  imagi- 
nation burst  forth,  like  luxuriant  vines  overrunning  trellis- 
work  ;  and  her  sadness  gave  to  every  glowing  object  a 
tinge  of  its  own  hue. 

Fourth.  Her  mature  style :  when  the  foliage,  buds,  and 
flowers  of  the  preceding  periods  gave  way  to  fruitage,  golden 
fruitage,  more  beautiful,  and  far  more  precious.  Her  world- 
wide sympathies,  mental  interests,  home  affections,  and 
heart-wearing  sorrows  being  all  supplanted,  absorbed,  or 
etherialized  by  the  increase  of  Divine  knowledge  and  love. 

Even  if  Mrs.  Hemans  had  not  survived  the  second  of 
these  periods,  she  would  have  left  an  honoured  name  to 
posterity.  The  third  was  that  of  her  greatest  popularity, 
and  by  the  productions  of  that  period  she  still  continues  to 
be  best  known  to  the  world  at  large.  In  the  course  of  it, 
and  especially  while  writing  the  '  Lays  of  Many  Lands,' 
and  some  of  the  numerous  poems  and  songs  which  followed 
them,  the  original  style  which  she  had  then  distinctively 
formed  for  herself,  ran  no  little  risk  of  stiffening  into  man- 
nerism. 

The  ancient  Welsh  bards  had  a  series  of  '  Triads  of  Em- 
bellishments,' derived  from  the  compositions  of  still  more 
ancient  predecessors  ;  and  to  these  triads  they  resorted  as 
an  approved  vocabulary  of  epithets.  For  instance,  the 
three  embellishing  names  of  the  wind  were  "  hero  of  the 
world,"  "  architect  of  bad  weather,"  and  "  assaulter  of  the 
hills."  The  three  embellishing  names  of  flowers  were 
"  gems  of  shrubs,"  "  beauties  of  summer,"  and  "  eyes  of 
zephyrs;"  and  the  three  embellishing  names  of  herbs,  "man- 
tle of  summer,"  "  aspect  of  beauty,"  and  "  hall-floor  of  love." 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  483 

The  invention  and  combination  of  epithets  is  a  privilege 
of  true  poets  in  every  age.  The  British  poets  of  the 
seventeenth  century  left  to  their  successors  a  vast  though 
unassorted  treasury  of  original  phrases,  which  gradually 
became  incorporated  with  the  very  texture  of  poetic  lan- 
guage, while  each  of  those  successors  who  possessed  true 
genius,  framed  for  himself,  and  enriched  the  literary  com- 
monwealth with  new  combinations  of  words  beautiful  and 
valuable  in  proportion  to  the  minds  which  sent  them 
forth. 

The  mind  of  Mrs.  Hemans  was  unusually  fertile  in  the 
production  of  such  "  embellishing  names,"  and  her  writings 
alone  would  afford  a  series  of  greater  length  than  the 
whole  Bardic  canon  of '  Triads  of  Embellishment.'  When 
she  composed  too  fast,  which  her  facility  in  rhyming  often 
tempted  her  to  do,  her  retentive  memory  enabled  her  to 
supply  every  momentary  lack  of  expression  by  one  of  her 
favourite  phrases,  until  an  appearance  of  ostentatious  en- 
richment or  a  sense  of  palling  tautology  was  produced  by 
the  repetition  of  "  golden  light,"  "  far  blue  seas,"  "  willowy 
form,"  "  wavy  hair,"  "glancing  eyes,"  "  radiant  wings,"  and 
other  just  and  elegant  epithets. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  her  style,  in  its  most  popular 
and  florid  period,  was  in  its  general  effect  monotonous. 
The  monotony,  however,  resembled  woodland  scenery, 
which  tires  the  cursory  beholder  with  superficial  sameness, 
while  to  the  naturalist  and  the  artist,  its  recesses  and  in- 
terstices, its  nooks  and  crevices,  supply  endless  diversities 
of  minutely  delicate  and  beautiful  objects.  The  more  her 
poems  are  studied  the  more  various  do  they  appear; 
shining  out  like  a  tuft  of  moss  to  a  beam  of  sunshine, 
words,  which  seemed  casual  adjuncts  of  the  cadence  of 
verse,  show  meanings  which  attest  the  most  exact  and 

2  i  2 


484  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

thoughtful  observation.  Such  is  her  comparison  of  the 
richly  tinted  centre  of  a  rose  to  a  ruby ;  *  and  such  the 
exquisite  lines,  where 

"  Flower-cups  close 
To  the  last  whisper  of  the  falling  gale." 

The  idea  of  flowers  shutting  their  blossoms  gently  and 
leisurely  for  the  repose  of  night  is  pleasing,  but  their  doing 
it  to  the  soft  music  of  the  subsiding  wind  is  poetical  in  the 
highest  degree. 

One  more  instance  must  be  adduced  in  proof  of  the  per- 
fection in  which  she  possessed  the  faculty  of  recording 
clearly  intricate  natural  appearances.  It  refers  to  the  sky, 
where — 

"  In  calm  clouds  of  pearly  stillness  bright, 
Showers  weave  with  sunshine,  and  transpierce  their  slight 
Etherial  cradle." 

Rambling  often,  on  horseback  or  on  foot,  alone  and 
slowly  on  a  fine  day,  through  a  country  where  stately 
woods,  rich  fields,  and  undulating  pastures  intersected  by 
rivers  and  streams,  varied  by  wild  glens  and  rocks,  slope 
down  from  a  range  of  lofty  mountains,  where  human  dwell- 
ings and  human  beings  are  only  scattered  about  and 
dotted  in  as  apparent  accessories  to  the  prospect,  where 
the  soaring  hawk  or  rook  and  the  flitting  bushbirds  alone 
break  the  soft  silence  of  beautiful  nature ;  the  meaning, 
the  expression  which  emanates  from  such  scenery  must 
deeply  affect  the  passing  beholder.  It  is  not  the  reflex  of 
the  individual's  mind,  it  is  not  the  recurrence  of  poetic 
associations,  it  is  the  fresh,  true  whisper  coming,  like  an- 
gelic anthems,  from  God's  wonderful  works,  and  serenely 
celebrating  his  wisdom,  his  power,  and  his  goodness.  The 
dull  and  ignorant  feel  it,  as  well  as  the  sensitive  and  in- 

*  In  'The  Ancestral  Song.' 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  485 

trllectual,  although  less  powerfully;  and  as  they  possess 
less  ability  to  collect  and  blend  together  such  successive 
impressions,  and  to  tincture  them  with  the  colours  of  poetic 
or  philosophic  reflection,  so  do  they  also  want  even  the 
necessary  knowledge  of  the  words  which  would  fitly  express 
them.  Nevertheless,  aided  by  experience,  they  are  enabled 
immediately  to  recognise  that  the  poetry  which  bodies 
forth  such  etherial  emanations  is  faithful  to  nature,  and 
utters  audibly  the  mute,  inarticulate  language  of  their  own 
inmost  hearts. 

No  English  poet,  not  Thomson,  nor  Cowper,  nor  Words- 
worth himself,  is  more  conversant  with  external  nature  in 
its  minute  details  than  Mrs.  Hemans.  From 

"  The  deep  sound  of  the  ever-pealing  seas  " 

to  the  petals  of  a  daisy,  everything  had  a  voice  which  she 
understood. 
She  declares — 

"  God  hath  been  with  me  in  the  holiness 
Of  England's  mountains.     Not  in  sport  alone 
I  trod  their  heath  flowers,  but  high  thoughts  rose  up 
From  the  broad  shadow  of  enduring  rocks." 

That— 

"The  silence  of  the  hills 
Breathes  veneration." 

Not  only  single  objects  but  their  combinations  make 
choral  harmonies  for  her : — 

"  Now  doth  the  lake 
Darken  and  flash  in  rapid  interchange 
Unto  the  matin  breeze ;  and  the  blue  mist 
Rolls  like  a  furling  banner  from  the  brows 
Of  the  forth-gleaming  hills." 

Her  eye  and  ear  had  noticed  where — 

"  Profoundly  pure 
A  blue  sti-eain  rushes  through  a  darker  lake." 


486  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  voice  of  Cambria's  river  scenery  haunted  her  dreams, 
years  after  she  had  left  the  banks  of  Clwyd  : — 

'*  Oh,  Cambrian  river !  with  slow  music  gliding 

By  pastoral  hills,  old  woods,  and  ruined  towers  ; 
Now  midst  thy  reeds  and  golden  willows  hiding, 
Now  gleaming  forth  by  some  rich  bank  of  flowers." 

Many  of  her  poems  testify  that  she  had  heard — 

"  A  midnight  burst 
Of  forest-sounding  music.     Every  tone 
Which  the  blasts  call  forth  with  their  harping  wings 
From  gulfs  of  tossing  foliage  ;" 

and — 

"  A  dreamy  sound, 
A  hollow  murmur  of  the  dying  year 
In  the  deep  woods." 

To  her  there  came — 

"  Religious  whisperings 
And  shivery  leaf-sounds  of  the  solitude ;" 

and  of — 

"  The  groves 
Where  every  tree  hath  music  of  its  own." 

She.  had  remarked — 

"  How  the  green  shadows  close 
Into  a  rich,  clear,  summer-darkness  round 
A  luxury  of  gloom." 

She  owns — 

"  Meet  playmate  for  a  child,  a  blessed  child, 
Is  a  glad  shiging  stream,  heard  or  unheard, 
Singing  its  melody  of  happiness 
Amidst  the  reeds,  and  bounding  in  free  grace 
To  that  sweet  chime.    With  what  a  sparkling  life 
It  fills  the  shadowy  dingle !    Now  the  wing 
Of  some  low-slamming  swallow  shakes  bright  spray 
Forth  to  the  sunshine  from  its  dimpled  wave  ; 
Now  from  some  pool  of  crystal  darkness  deep 
The  trout  springs  upward  with  a  showery  gleam 
And  plashing  sound  of  waters.    What  swift  rings 
Of  mazy  insects  o'er  the  shallow  tide 
Seem,  as  they  glance,  to  scatter  sparks  of  light 
From  burnished  films  !    And  mark  yon  silvery  line 
Of  gossamer,  so  tremulously  hung 
Across  the  narrow  current,  from  the  tuft 
Of  hazels  to  the  hoary  poplar's  bough ! 


LITE11ABY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  487 

See  in  the  air's  transparence  how  it  waves, 
Quivering  and  glistening  with  each  faintest  gale, 
Yet  breaking  not :  a  bridge  for  fairy  shapes, 
How  delicate,  how  wondrous  ! " 

She  had  heard — 

"  In  the  hush  of  moonlight  hours 
Voices  from  the  folded  flowers." 

"  The  poesy  that  dwells 
Deep  in  green  woods  and  dells  " 

was  all  her  own  ;  and  she  could  not  depict  even  a  desert 
wilderness  without  making  the  very  sands  and  haze  vocal 
and  eloquent. 

Her  descriptions  of  natural  objects  are  not  ornamental 
dissertations,  but  inseparably  belong  to  the  human  interest 
of  her  poems  ;  and  her  notice  of  those  objects,  exhibiting  a 
ceaseless  alacrity  of  observation,  presupposes  a  certain  de- 
gree of  cheerfulness  which  tends  to  abate  the  mournful 
effect  of  her  poetry. 

External  nature  is  for  her  a  standing  simile ;  a  back- 
ground against  which  the  human  figures  appear  in  relief ; 
or,  perhaps,  it  may  be  termed  the  symphony,  the  accom- 
paniment, and  the  voluntary  of  every  subject,  carrying  it 
through  with  a  flowing  ease  and  apparent  artlessness,  like 
the  soft,  free  sweep  of  streams  through  a  valley,  or  of 
winds  over  flowers.  The  perfect  accordance  of  the  melody 
of  the  versification  with  the  predominating  idea  of  each 
poem  captivates  the  ear  and  wins  the  mind  to  unresisting 
sympathy. 

Mrs.  Hemans  never  left  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  but  her  imagination  visited  and 
realized  every  place  of  which  she  read,  or  heard,  or  saw  a 
picture.  Her  intimate  acquaintance  with  a  mountainous 
region  gave  peculiar  vividness  to  descriptions  of 

"  The  glorious  land 

Of  the  white  Alps  and  pine-crowned  Apennines 
Along  whose  shores  the  sapphire  seas  expand  ;" 


488  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

but  in  other  instances  where  she  had  no  such  assistance, 
she  caught  the  poetic  sentiment  of  a  scene  so  perfectly  as 
to  give  the  effect  of  visual  knowledge;  for  a  proof  of 
this  the  reader  is  referred  to  'The  Koinan  Girl's  Song/ 
which  seems  as  if  written  near  Home  while  looking  at 
the  city. 

Wherever  her  poems  may  be  localized,  she  peoples 
them  with  heroic  men,  devoted  women,  and  children  such 
as  to  a  poet-mother  her  own  appeared. 

Any  incident  which  impressed  her,  in  the  course  of  her 
reading,  incited  her  to  give  it  a  poetic  paraphrase ;  and 
whenever  the  theme  admitted  of  expansion,  illustration, 
and  the  infusion  of  pathetic  interest,  she  made  it  tho- 
roughly her  own. 

She  had  no  particular  faculty  for  narration,  and  con- 
sequently told  a  short  story  much  better  than  a  long  one. 
Her  tales  are  languid  streams,  loitering  in  eddies,  and 
soon  merging  in  lakes ;  meditative  retrospections  rather 
than  moving  accidents.  Nevertheless,  they  are  in  their 
kind  unrivalled  in  beauty.  Never,  before  or  since,  has  so 
much  deep  and  passionate  feeling  found  utterance  so 
fervid,  so  tender,  and  yet  so  chastened  by  sober  judgment, 
in  the  language  of  poetry. 

Her  occasional  verses  have  been  pronounced  by  Lord 
Jeffrey  the  best  in  English  literature,  and  that  decision 
none  who  know  them  will  feel  inclined  to  impugn.  The 
manner  in  which  she  generalizes  a  subject,  and  sets  all  its 
principal  attributes  at  once  before  the  mind  would  be 
astonishing  if  it  were  not  enchanting.  Those  pieces  which 
relate  to  hearth  and  home  and  to  the  seasons  are  more 
especially  admirable. 

Her  devotional  poetry  resembles  that  of  Keble,  though 
it  is  not  like  his  injured  by  patristic  formalities. 


UNIVERSITY    ) 

Of 

LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  489 

No  constraint  is  perceptible  in  her  diction :  subservience 
to  metrical  rules  can  only  be  detected  in  the  occasional 
want  of  exact  consecutive  order  in  the  arrangement  of 
ideas ;  a  want  which  to  immethodical  minds  only  serves 
to  make  the  flow  of  words  seem  more  natural  and  free. 
Poetic  utterance  at  last  became  almost  as  easy  to  her  as 
ordinary  speech ;  and  when  discontents  had  subsided  into 
resignation,  and  regrets  were  lost  in  anticipations ;  the 
truth  and  earnestness  of  her  character,  strengthened  and 
sublimated  by  the  wisdom  and  fervour  of  piety,  imparted 
fresh  force  to  her  genius  and  gave  a  sort  of  seraphic  inten- 
sity to  her  poetry. 

The  assemblage  of  a  painter's  works,  and  their  subjec- 
tion to  one  comparative  survey  is  the  severest  test  of  his 
ability;  and  although  the  formation  of  judgment  upon 
poetry,  even  to  the  most  practised  critic,  is  less  spon- 
taneous than  on  painting,  the  test  of  present  and  inter- 
poising  comparison  is  not  less  trying  to  the  writings  of  the 
poet  than  it  is  to  the  pictures  of  the  painter.  When  the 
productions  of  a  life  are  thus  brought  together,  they  bear 
evidence,  as  it  were,  with  the  voices  of  successive'  years,  to 
the  progressive  and  predominating  tastes,  tendencies,  and 
sources  of  supply.  They  mark  the  gradual  progress  of 
cultivation  and  correction,  the  increase  of  growth,  of 
strength,  and  of  fertility.  They  plainly  point  out  each 
other's  faults,  while  they  show  the  shadows  and  sunlights 
of  feeling,  the  rainbow  effulgence  of  genius,  and  all  the 
various  modes  of  intentional  expression  and  unintentional 
betrayal  by  which  the  gifted  spirit  manifests  its  sufferings, 
its  knowledge,  and  its  aspirations. 

It  would  scarcely  be  possible  to  scan  any  equal  number 
<  >f  volumes  from  the  pen  of  a  single  author  and  to  find 
fewer  grammatical  errors  than  in  those  of  Mrs.  Hemans. 


490  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Most  of  those  which  do  occur  look  like  typographical 
mistakes.  The  junction  of  the  verb  belonging  to  the 
third  person  singular  with  the  pronoun  of  the  second 
person  singular  is  an  anomaly  which  she  occasionally  per- 
petrates for  the  sake  of  the  sound.  Her  application  of 
words  according  to  the  most  rigorous  exactness  of  their 
meaning  is  usually  irreproachable ;  but  from  first  to  last 
she  has  pertinaciously  given  to  the  word  "  mien  "  a  sense 
previously  unauthorised  by  any  standard  English  writer, 
although  sanctioned  by  usage  in  French  literature. 
Moreover,  not  content  with  using  the  word  to  signify  the 
substantial  human  face,  she,  twice  in  the  course  of  one 
poem,  '  The  Secret  Tribunal,'  bestows  it  where  even  per- 
sonality is  wanting : — 

"  Peopling  the  wild  and  solemn  scene 
With  forms  well  suited  to  its  mien," 

and  describing — 

"  One  chosen  spot  of  gentler  mien' ' 

In  those  peculiar  qualities  which  distinguish  the  poetry 
of  women  from  that  of  men,  in  the  revelation  of  feminine 
modes  of  thought  and  tones  of  feeling,  in  fine  and  mi- 
nutely delicate  observation,  tender  pathos,  deep  affection, 
and  sublimely  blended  purity  and  piety,  she  excelled  all 
preceding  authoresses.  Of  a  mother's  protecting  and  self- 
sacrificing  fondness,  of  the  endeared  attachment  of  the 
sister,  the  grateful  devotedness  of  the  daughter,  the  loving 
faithfulness  of  the  wife,  of  genial  sympathy  with  human 
nature  in  all  its  forms  of  being  and  suffering,  of  subjection 
to  every  passing  change  in  the  sky,  the  air,  the  earth,  and 
human  aspect,  blended  with  the  conscious  independence  of 
a  hidden  life  for  immortality,  never  before  had  such  an 
eloquent  exponent  arisen. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  491 

THE  DIAL  OF  FLOWERS. 

"  'Twas  a  lovely  thought  to  mark  the  hours 

As  they  floated  in  light  away, 
By  the  opening  and  the  folding  flowers 

That  laugh  to  the  summer's  day. 
Thus  had  each  moment  its  own  rich  hue, 

And  its  graceful  cup  and  bell, 
In  whose  coloured  vase  might  sleep  the  dew, 

Like  a  pearl  in  an  ocean  shell. 

To  such  sweet  signs  might  the  time  have  flowed 

In  a  golden  current  on, 
Ere  from  the  garden,  man's  first  abode, 

The  glorious  guests  were  gone. 

So  might  the  days  have  been  brightly  told, 

Those  days  of  song  and  dreams, 
"When  shepherds  gathered  their  flocks  of  old 

By  the  blue  Arcadian  streams. 

So,  in  those  isles  of  delight  that  rest 

Far  off  in  a  breezeless  main, 
Which  many  a  bark  with  a  weary  quest 

Has  sought,  but  still  in  vain. 

Yet  is  not  life,  in  its  real  flight, 

Marked  thus,  even  thus,  on  earth, 
By  the  closing  of  one  hope's  delight, 

And  another's  gentle  birth  ? 

Oh !  let  us  live,  so  that  flower  by  flower, 

Shutting  in  turn  may  leave, 
A  lingerer  still  for  the  sunset  hour, 

A  charm  for  the  shaded  eve  !  " 

Dr.  Lindley  in  his  '  Botany '  gives  a  *  Watch  of  Flora,' 
prepared  from  the  records  of  Linnaeus  for  Upsal,  and  from 
those  of  De  Candolle  for  Paris.  It  comprises  forty-five 
plants,  begins  with  the  Convolvulus  nil  and  sepium,  which 
open  their  flowers  near  Paris  at  from  3  to  4  A.M.  ;  and 
ends  with  the  Convolvulus  purpureus,  which  opens  its 
flowers  at  10  P.M. 

Between  these  extremes  rank  some  whole  genera  and 
many  species  of  other  genera. 

It  appears  from  this  *  Watch '  that  no  flower  indigenous 
to  Europe  opens  either  at  Paris  or  Upsal  at  noon.  The 


492  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

common  Ornithogalum  umbellatum  takes  its  French  name 
from  its  hour  of  expansion — Dame  d'onze  heures. 

'Flora's  Horologe/  by  Charlotte  Smith,  may  be  com- 
pared with  '  The  Dial  of  Flowers '  by  turning  to  page  226. 
The  subject  is  the  same,  the  treatment  as  different  as  it 
could  possibly  receive  from  two  feminine  minds.  Con- 
sidered merely  as  a  graceful  descriptive  poem,  the 
'  Horologe '  deserves  to  be  preferred  for  the  more  familiar 
and  exact  knowledge  which  it  evinces  of  the  habits  of 
flowers,  and  for  the  skilful  ease  with  which  it  sets  their 
brilliant  images  in  succession  before  the  reader's  mind. 
In  '  The  Dial/  the  mere  fact  that  flowers  were  thus  used 
is  seized  upon  without  any  particular  notice  of  their  names 
or  forms.  The  mind  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  on  the  contrary, 
takes  a  wide  survey  of  Eden,  Arcadia,  and  the  unfound 
Islands  of  the  Blessed,  fastening  at  last  upon  the  analogies 
of  the  flowers  with  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  human  life, 
and  drawing  a  religious  moral  from  their  transitory  beauty. 

To  those  who,  after  having  spent  their  youth  in  rural 
retirement,  find  their  subsequent  lot  to  be  cast  amid  the 
busy  haunts  of  active  life,  the  following  natural,  truthful, 
and  beautiful  sonnet  will  be  peculiarly  soothing,  as  a 
musical  echo  of  their  own  meditations. 

To  THE  SKY. 

"  Far  from  the  rustlings  of  the  poplar  bough, 
Which  o'er  my  opening  life  wild  music  made, 

Far  from  the  green  hills  with  their  heathery  glow, 
And  flashing  streams  whereby  my  childhood  played  ; 

In  the  dim  city,  'midst  the  sounding  flow 
Of  restless  life,  to  thee,  I  love  to  turn, 
Oh,  thou  rich  sky  !  and  from  thy  splendours  learn 

How  song-birds  come  and  part,  flowers  wane  and  blow. 

With  thee  all  shapes  of  glory  find  their  home, 

And  thou  hast  taught  me  well,  majestic  dome  ! 

By  stars,  by  sunsets,  by  soft  clouds  which  rove 
Thy  blue  expanse,  or  sleep  in  silvery  rest, 
That  nature's  God  hath  left  no  spot  unblest 

With  founts  of  beauty  for  the  eye  of  love." 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  493 

The  writer  of  the  present  essay  has  not  met  with  any 
printed  statement  of  the  successive  editions  through  which 
the  separate  publications  of  Mrs.  Hemans  have  passed. 
An  advertisement  of  Messrs.  Blackwood  for  1860,  shows 
that  four  different  editions  of  her  collected  *  Works '  con- 
tinue on  sale.  Until  the  copyrights  have  run  out,  a  just 
estimate  can  scarcely  be  made  of  the  hold  those  '  Works ' 
have  taken  upon  public  favour  :  so  many  would  gladly  buy 
a  part,  who  cannot  conveniently  afford  to  buy  the  whole, 
even  in  their  least  expensive  form,  that  a  new  era  of  wide 
popular  circulation  probably  awaits  the  favourite  poems. 

In  the  best  extant  edition,  the  poems  are  rather  put 
together  than  arranged  :  annotations  follow  poems  to 
which  they  do  not  belong,  and  the  general  index  is  de- 
fective. The  collections  of  various  dates  from  magazines, 
musical  depositaries,  annuals,  and  other  sources,  under  the 
general  titles  of  '  Miscellaneous  Poems '  and  '  Miscellaneous 
Pieces '  require  sorting.  Those  which  are  on  subjects  to 
which  Mrs.  Hemans  had  already  given  specific  names, 
should  be  designated  second  and  successive  series  of  such 
subjects.  The  rest  ought  to  be  divided  under  headings 
descriptive  of  their  respective  bearing,  such  as  *  Poems 
suggested  by  Sound,  the  Wind,  Music,  &c. ; '  '  Poems 
suggested  by  Pictures,'  'Poems  suggested  by  Sculpture/ 
1  Poems  addressed  to  Persons,'  '  Monodies.' 

Machiavelli,  in  his  '  Keflections  on  Livy,'  remarks : — 
"I  have  often  thought  that  the  cause  of  every  man's 
success  in  life  is  due  to  the  adaptation  of  his  mind  to  the 
times  in  which  he  lives."  *  This  may  with  equal  propriety 
be  asserted  of  books ;  and  the  proposition  in  an  enlarged 
form  is  likewise  indisputable, — that  the  adaptation  of 
books  to  those  principles  of  human  nature  which  continue 

*  Bolm's  Translated  Edition. 


494         LITERAKY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

unchanged  throughout  the  fluctuations  of  ages  will  render 
them  permanently  acceptable.  The  writings  of  Mrs. 
Hemans  met  with  immediate  and  extensive  popularity, 
alike  in  the  most  distant  and  alienated  colonial  settlements 
and  in  the  old  home  of  the  British  race.  Their  suitability 
to  more  than  one  condition  of  social  life  has  thus  been 
manifested.  Their  writer  died  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago,  and  many  of  them  have  now  been  more  than 
forty  years  before  the  public  in  undiminished  favour. 
These  are  good  auguries.  Perhaps  when  the  century  has 
run  its  course,  and  a  critical  reviewer,  like  a  gardener  at 
the  breaking  up  of  winter,  examines  the  ground  and  sorts 
out  surviving  plants  from  those  which  have  perished  in  the 
frost  of  time,  two-thirds  of  those  produced  by  Mrs.  Hemans 
will  be  found  to  possess  perennial  vitality. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  495 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE  POETESSES. 
•  A.D.  1838.    OCTOBER. 

Laetitia-Elizabeth  Landon. 


"  We  might  have  been !     These  are  but  common  words 

And  yet  they  make  the  sum  of  life's  bewailing  ; 
They  are  the  echo  of  those  finer  chords, 

Whose  music  life  deplores  when  unavailing  : 

We  might  have  been !  "* 


L^TITIA-ELIZABETH  LANDON. 

EARLY  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Sir  William  Landon, 
Knight,  possessed  patrimonial  estates  in  the  county  of 
Hereford.  He  speculated  in  the  South  Sea  scheme,  and 
was  ruined  by  it.  His  son,  the  Eev.  John  Landon,  held 
the  rectories  of  Nursted  and  listed  in  Kent,  and  distin- 
guished himself  by  writing  against  dissenters  from  the 
Church  of  England. 

The  Rev.  John  Landon's  son  bore  the  same  name  and 
designation,  and  held  the  rectory  of  Tedstone-Delamere. 

John,  the  eldest  son  of  this  last  rector,  went  to  sea  when 
a  boy,  with  Admiral  Bowyer,  and  visited  the  African  coast. 
On  the  death  of  the  admiral,  Mr.  John  Landon  retired 
from  the  naval  service,  and  subsequently  became  a  partner 
in  the  prosperous  firm  of  Adair  and  Co.,  army  agents,  in 
Pall  Mall.  He  married  Catherine-Jane  Bishop,  a  gentle- 

*  '  Life  and  Literary  Remains  of  L.  E.  L.,'  vol.  ii.  p.  248. 


496  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

woman  of  Welsh  extraction,  and  took  up  his  abode  at  the 
house  in  Hans  Place,  Chelsea,  which  in  1839  was  known 
as  number  25.  Lsetitia-Elizabeth  Landon,  their  eldest 
child,  was  born  there  on  the  14th  of  August,  1802.  They 
had  a  younger  daughter,  who  died  at  the  age  of  twelve 
years,  and  an  only  son,  the  Kev.  Whittington-Henry 
Landon,  who  was  Lastitia's  almost  inseparable  companion 
and  friend.  She  was  remarkable  in  early  •childhood  for 
ardent  affections,  self-sacrificing  generosity,  an  impetuous 
temper,  and  an  excessive  predilection  for  books.  In  her 
sixth  year  she  attended,  as  a  day  scholar,  at  a  school  kept 
by  a  Miss  Eawdon,  No.  22,  Hans  Place.  Her  father  un- 
fortunately inherited  his  knightly  ancestor's  turn  for 
speculation,  and  practised  model  agriculture  at  Coventry 
farm  on  the  borders  of  Hertfordshire.  His  family,  including 
Laetitia,  occasionally  accompanied  him  thither,  but  she 
never  lived  in  the  country  until  she  was  seven  years  old, 
when  he  removed  his  home  to  Trevor  Park,  East  Barnet, 
where  a  cousin,  called  Miss  Landon,  resided  with  them, 
and  became  the  gentle  teacher  of  the  eccentric  child,  whose 
quickness  of  apprehension,  retentive  memory,  and  keen 
sagacity,  excited  her  admiration.  No  sooner  had  Lsetitia 
conquered  the  difficulties  of  mechanical  initiation  than  she 
entered  eagerly  upon  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 

She  learned  French  with  facility,  but  found  the  art  of 
penmanship  almost  unattainable,  and  never  could  write  a 
good  hand.  Her  attempts  to  become  a  good  pianoforte 
player  utterly  failed ;  yet  she  always  loved  music,  and  its 
sounds,  both  vocal  and  instrumental,  acted  as  an  invocation 
to  her  poetic  faculty.  Her  course  of  reading  in  childhood 
was  carefully  directed,  and  limited  to  history  and  biography  ; 
and  novels  were  strictly  prohibited.  Nevertheless,  her 
brother  recollects  that  he  and  his  sister  read  together  by 


LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND.  497 

stealth  during  their  childhood  not  less  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  volumes  of  '  Cooke's  Poets  and  Novelists/  besides 
other  books  of  the  same  sort,  a  proof  of  negligent  over- 
sight in  the  governess,  and  of  habitual  deceptiveness  in  the 
pupil. 

The  restriction  in  this  case  was  injudicious ;  and  its  ill 
effects  may  serve  as  a  warning  to  those  persons  who  under- 
take the  heavy  responsibility  of  training  a  child  of  genius. 
Her  appetite  for  books  became  voracious  and  indiscrimi- 
nating,  and  as  long  as  she  lived  it  never  knew  satiety. 
Her  spirits  were  lively,  and  she  shared  with  alacrity  her 
brother's  boyish  sports,  becoming  expert  at  trap-ball,  hoop, 
and  archery ;  nor  was  she  unsuccessful  in  donkey  riding 
and  donkey  racing.  In  other  moods  of  mind,  she  would 
walk  up  and  down  in  the  garden,  or  pace  the  lime-tree 
walk  for  hours  together  in  silent  thoughtfulness,  and  at 
night  reveal  the  subject  of  her  reveries  in  long  stories  of 
imaginary  adventures.  She  learned,  of  her  own  accord, 
long  poems  by  heart,  and  Scott's  '  Lady  of  the  Lake '  was 
among  her  dearest  favourites.  All  her  inventive  fancies 
required  speedy  utterance,  and  she  often  found  difficulty  in 
procuring  a  patient  listener.  She  used,  therefore,  to  bribe 
her  brother  with  gifts  to  attend  to  her  rhapsodies  and  reci- 
tations, and  he,  being  a  dull  boy,  endured  her  eloquent 
sallies  merely  for  the  sake  of  some  ulterior  enjoyment 
better  suited  to  his  taste.  The  attachment  which  subsisted 
between  them  was,  however,  perfect  in  its  kind,  and  so 
great  in  its  degree,  that  their  father  learned  by  experience 
when  either  of  them  was  found  guilty  of  a  fault,  that  the 
most  efficacious  way  of  producing  penitence  in  the  culprit 
was  by  subjecting  the  boy  to  punishment  for  the  offences 
of  the  girl,  and  the  girl  for  those  of  the  boy. 

The  travels  of  her  cousin,  Captain  Landon,  in  America, 

2  K 


498  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

formed  the  subject  of  her  earliest  written  composition. 
Her  second  was  a  sketch  of  the  character  of  Sir  John  Doyle, 
suggested  by  reading  an  account  of  the  Peninsular  war. 

Her  father's  reminiscences  of  Africa,  the  perusal  of  a  book 
which  he  gave  her,  entitled  '  Silvester  Tramper,'  and  of 
'  Robinson  Crusoe/  stimulated  and  directed  her  mind  in 
framing  fictions  of  adventurous  enterprise,  and  the  '  Ara- 
bian Nights'  widened  her  range  of  illusive  pleasures. 
'  Cook's  Voyages '  also  she  greatly  delighted  in,  and  she 
tried  to  realise  his  discoveries,  in  miniature  forms,  in  a 
punt  upon  the  pond. 

In  childhood,  certainly,  she  desired  to  be  what  she  ad- 
mired, and  to  exemplify  her  highest  imaginings.  Excepting 
the  surreptitious  perusal  of  prohibited  books,  no  element 
of  falsehood  appears,  in  the  descriptions  which  her  brother 
and  cousin  have  given  of  her  early  character,  though  such 
an  imputation  may  covertly  lurk  in  her  father's  playful 
remark  upon  the  incompleteness  of  his  children's  imitation 
of  Spartan  character,  that  thieving  was  unpractised  only 
because  they  chanced  not  to  be  in  an  enemy's  country.* 
Now,  as  the  youth  of  Sparta  practised  theft  with  the  espe- 
cial purpose  of  perfecting  themselves  in  guile,  theft  and 
guile  in  this  case  may  be  considered  as  counterparts,  and 
while  exonerated  from  the  acts,  the  little  Landons  were 
given  credit  for  the  disposition  to  commit  them. 

Lewis  states,  in  the  preface  to  his  '  Life  of  Goethe,'  that 
after  having  embodied  the  poet's  '  Autobiography '  in  his 
first  volume,  he  "  found  it  indispensable  to  recast  the  whole, 
and  begin  again  upon  a  different  principle."  "  Thus,"  he 
adds,  "  the  Autobiography  came  to  be  treated  only  as  one 
of  the  various  sources  from  which  the  story  was  constructed. 
The  main  reason  of  this  was  the  abiding  inaccuracy  of  tone, 

*  See  Blanchard's  '  Life  and  Literary  Kemains  of  L.  E.  L.,'  vol.  i. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  490 

which,  far  more  misleading  than  the  many  inaccuracies  of 
fact,  gives  to  the  whole  youthful  period,  as  narrated  by 
him,  an  aspect  so  directly  contrary  to  what  is  given  by 
contemporary  evidence,  especially  his  own  letters,  that  an 
attempt  to  reconcile  the  contradiction  is  futile."  * 

.A  curious  parallel  to  this  passage  may  be  found  in  the 
case  of  Laetitia-Elizabeth  Landon,  whose  '  History  of  a 
Child/  written  in  1836,  and  avowedly  intended  to  record 
her  own  experience,  represents  her  as  a  shy,  melancholy, 
lonely,  and  unloved  little  creature,  acutely  sensitive  of  pain 
from  every  casual  look  or  trivial  word,  and  finding  a  sort 
of  solace  in  deeming  herself  a  victim.  Such  a  child,  her 
brother  and  other  early  friends  distinctly  testify  that  she 
was  not  The  cousin  who  was  her  instructress  declares 
that  her  temper  was  cheerful  and  kind ;  that  a  word  or  a 
look  of  admonition  would  control  her  fits  of  passion  and 
produce  penitent  submission ;  and  that  she  was  tenderly 
beloved  and  cared  for.  These  conflicting  statements  Mr. 
Blanchard  thinks  irreconcilable,  and  consequently  he  re- 
gards *  The  History  of  a  Child '  as  a  mere  romance. 

In  this  judgment,  perhaps,  he  errs,  for  it  seems  probable, 
if  a  one-sided  view  of  the  subject  be  taken,  that  she  so  far 
wrote  the  truth.  None  but  herself  could  know  the  keen- 
ness of  her  sensations  in  her  peculiar  moods  of  mind  ;  and 
the  exaggerated  record,  unbalanced  by  a  proper  estimate 
of  accompanying  outward  facts,  might  seem, — to  persons  of 
ordinary  capacity  and  equable  feelings,  who  were  cognizant 
only  with  those  facts,  and  had  no  sympathetic  knowledge 
of  the  temperament  of  genius, — to  treat  of  unrealities. 

In  the  year  1815,  Mr.  John  Landon  removed  with  his 
wife  and  children  to  Lewis  Place,  Fulham,  where  they 

*  Vol.  i.  pp.  9,  10. 

2  K  2 


500  LITEBAKY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

remained  only  twelve  months,  and  then  settled  at  Old 
Brompton. 

Her  brother  testifies  that  "up  to  the  age  of  thirteen, 
when  the  family  quitted  Trevor  Park,  she  was  a  strong, 
healthy  child,  a  joyous  and  high-spirited  romp.  Nor  was 
this  disposition  ever  wholly  lost.  When,  indeed,  thought 
began  to  deepen,  and  the  imagination  to  unfold,  it  changed 
into  the  milder  and  less  childish  form  of  playful  wit  and 
social  cheerfulness."* 

Poetry  and  romance  now  absorbed  her  mental  interests, 
and  paternal  approbation  awakened  the  ambition  of  public 
celebrity.  Mr.  Jerdan,  then  editor  of  *  The  Literary 
Gazette,'  was  a  neighbour ;  an  introduction  to  him  was 
obtained,  and  her  crude  fragments  of  original  prose  and 
verse  were  submitted  to  his  critical  examination.  He  dis- 
cerned in  them  the  offshoots  of  true  poetic  life,  encouraged 
her  to  persevere  in  the  cultivation  of  the  art  which  she 
supremely  loved,  and  gave  several  of  her  juvenile  pieces 
publicity  in  his  weekly  paper.  She  composed  and  rhymed 
with  facility ;  her  mind  was  full  of  facts ;  similies  sprung 
up  from  every  object  of  sight ;  and  the  cadences  of  verse 
seemed  almost  as  natural  to  her  as  ordinary  speech. 

She  knew  that  her  father's  agricultural  speculations  had 
been  unsuccessful ;  that  her  brother  needed  a  well-filled 
purse  to  pursue  a  University  course,  and  that  the  con- 
veniences and  comforts  of  her  parents'  home  were  painfully 
diminished.  These  considerations,  and  the  strong  resolve 
she  made  to  become  personally  independent,  added  power- 
ful incentives  to  industry,  and  mingled  mercenary  calcu- 
lations with  imaginative  conceptions.  In  general,  the 
young  are  protected  and  screened  by  their  friends  from 
the  necessity  of  struggling  against  adverse  fortune;  but 
*  Blanchard's  '  Life  and  Literary  Remains,'  vol.  i. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  501 

there  are  emergencies,  where,  standing  exposed  and  solitary, 
they  are  forced  to  brave  the  blast,  and  to  shield  their  natural 
defenders  ;  and  such,  unfortunately,  was  her  position. 

It  does  not  appear  that  she  ever  slept  from  beneath  her 
parental  roof  until  she  was  eighteen  years  of  age.  Family 
troubles  having  then  reached  their  crisis,  she  was  sent  on 
a  long  visit  to  some  of  her  relations  at  Clifton  ;  and  from 
thence  she  accompanied  her  grandmother  into  Gloucester- 
shire, and,  returning  with  her  to  London,  remained  for  a 
time  with  her  in  Sloane  Street. 

In  the  year  1821,  she  published  a  volume  containing 
'The  Fate  of  Adelaide'  with  minor  poems,  which  she 
dedicated  to  Mrs.  Siddons.  In  the  same  year  she  com- 
menced the  series  of  '  Poetical  Sketches '  in  the  '  Literary 
Gazette/  to  which  she  affixed  the  signature  of  L.  E.  L. 
They  attained  extraordinary  popularity  alike  with  the  old 
and  with  the  young ;  for,  notwithstanding  the  distrustful 
views  of  life  which  they  shadowed  forth,  the  melancholy 
forebodings  with  which  they  abounded,  the  weariness  and 
despondency  of  baffled  hopes  and  blighted  affections  which 
they  expressed,  there  breathed  in  them  such  buoyant 
freshness,  such  careless  grace,  such  vehement  and  youthful 
feeling,  that  their  picturesque,  chivalrous,  and  beautiful 
imagery  touched  the  poetic  nerve  in  every  heart,  and 
touching  thrilled  it. 

In  1824,  she  published  '  The  Improvisatrice,  and  other 
Poems/  which  met  with  great  success.  Several  editions  of 
this  volume  were  rapidly  sold,  and  fame  and  fortune  gave 
propitious  omens.  Of  'The  Improvisatrice/  Mr.  Laman 
Blanchard  has  felicitously  remarked,  in  alluding  to  the 
crowded  imagery,  that  Miss  Landon  "  destroyed  the  effect 
of  a  fine  thought  by  profusely  heaping  others  upon  it,  until 
she  buried  her  nightingale  in  roses."  One  might,  not  un- 


502  LITEBAEY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

reasonably,  suppose  that  the  authoress  of  such  a  composi- 
tion had  never  read  any  poem,  and  poured  out,  in  unpre- 
meditated melody,  what  she  scarcely  knew  to  be  one. 

A  strange  anomaly  must  now  be  noticed.  Her  chosen 
biographer  declares : — 

"  There  was  not  the  remotest  connection  or  affinity,  nor 
indeed  a  colour  of  resemblance  between  her  every-day  life 
or  habitual  feelings,  and  the  shapes  they  were  made  to 
assume  in  her  poetry.  No  two  persons  could  be  less  like 
each  other  in  air  that  related  to  the  contemplation  of  the 
actual  world,  than  L.  E.  L.  and  Lsetitia-Elizabeth  Landon. 

The  pen  once  out  of  her  hand,  there  was  no  more 

sturdy  questioner,  not  to  say  repudiator,  of  her  own  doc- 
trines than  her  own  practice Frve  minutes  after 

the  composition  of  some  poem  full  of  passionate  sorrow  or 
bitter  disappointment  and  reproach,  she  would  be  seen 
again  in  the  very  mood  out  of  which  she  had  been  carried 
by  the  poetic  frenzy  that  had  seized  her — a  state  of  mind 
the  most  frank,  affectionate,  and  enjoying ;  self-relying,  but 
equally  willing  to  share  in  the  simple  amusements  that 
might  be  presented,  or  to  employ  its  own  resources  for  the 
entertainment  of  others."  * 

A  few  pages  farther  on,  continuing  the  subject,  Mr. 
Blanchard  asserts : — 

"  That  she  less  frequently  aimed  at  expressing  in  her 
poetry  her  own  actual  feelings  and  opinions,  than  at 
assuming  a  character  for  the  sake  of  a  certain  kind  of 
effect,  and  throwing  her  thickly-thronging  ideas  together 
with  the  most  passionate  force.  Sorrow  and  suspicion, 
pining  regrets  for  the  past,  anguish  for  the  present,  and 
morbid  predictions  for  the  future,  were,  in  L.  E.  L.,  not 
moral  characteristics,  but  merely  literary  resources."  t 

*  See  the  '  Life  and  Literary  Remains  of  L.E.L.,'  vol.  i.,  pp.  34-5.  t  Ib.  p.  38. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         503 

Hence  it  appears,  that  just  as  in  writing  the  part  of  any 
particular  dramatic  personage,  feigned  sentiments  are  al- 
lotted in  conformity  with  the  assigned  character,  so  L.  E.  L. 
composed  poetry  in  accordance  with  her  own  idea  of  a 
poetess.  While  doing  this,  however,  it  surely  must  be 
believed  that  impersonation  wrought  her  up  for  the  time 
to  fervid  intensity  of  feeling.  Her  mind  resembled  a 
stormy  sky,  where  the  upper  and  lower  strata  of  clouds 
are  impelled  in  opposite  directions;  for  under  her  most 
lofty  and  beautiful  conceptions  passed  the  counter-current 
of  derisive  scepticism. 

Her  father  had  involved  himself  in  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments, which  brought  distress  and  poverty  upon  himself 
and  family.  His  health  and  spirits  gave  way  under  the 
effects  of  his  imprudence,  and  in  1825  he  died.  His 
daughter  had  loved  him  enthusiastically ;  to  please  him 
had  been  from  infancy  the  first  object  of  her  existence, 
and  his  death  was  long  a  source  to  her  of  deep  and 
poignant  sorrow. 

The  concluding  lines  of  c  The  Troubadour '  are  a  fervent 
tribute  to  his  memory.  This  poem  with  *  Poetical  Sketches 
of  Modern  Pictures,  and  Historical  Sketches/  was  pub- 
lished in  July,  1825.  ' The  Troubadour'  is  founded  upon 
the  story  of  the  festival  of  the  Golden  Violet,  instituted  at 
Toulouse  in  the  fourteenth  century.  The  subject  and  its 
historic  associations  gave  scope  to  her  chivalrous  pre- 
possessions. Describing  a  poet,  or  rather  her  own  idea  of 
a  poet,  she  says,  that  he 

"  But  dreams  a  dream  of  life  and  light, 

And  grasps  the  rainbow  that  appears 
Afar  all  beautiful  and  bright, 
And  finds  it  only  formed  of  tears." 

The  recent  death  of  Lord  Byron  had  strongly  impressed 
upon  her  mind  the  unsatisfying  nature  of  a  poet's  rewards. 


504  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

In  old  age,  the  flush  of  joy  or  transient  animation  will 
sometimes  recall  for  a  moment  and  reveal  to  a  third  genera- 
tion the  beauty  of  a  grandmother  which,  half  a  century  ago, 
enkindled  the  admiration  of  contemporaries.  In  youth  the 
altered  aspect  of  the  countenance  under  the  casual  pressure 
of  fatigue  or  illness,  foreshows,  in  like  manner,  the  change 
which  time  and  care  will  in  after  years  render  permanent. 
Thus  was  it  with  the  mind  of  L.  E.  L.  She  did  not  indeed 
live  to  grow  old,  but,  unhappily,  she  lived  to  experience  an 
analogous  mental  and  moral  change ;  the  fitful  and  humour- 
some  sadness  of  her  youth  settling  at  last  into  a  gloom, 
only  broken  by  flashing  outbursts  of  her  primal  gaiety. 
One  of  her  father's  brothers,  the  Kev.  Whittington  Landon, 
having  made  for  himself  powerful  friends  at  Oxford,  became 
Provost  of  Worcester  College  in  that  University,  held  the 
office  for  thirty  years,  and  was  subsequently  raised  to  the 
Deanery  of  Exeter.  This  uncle  was  endeared  to  Lsetitia- 
Elizabeth  Landon  by  the  essential  services  which  he  ren- 
dered to  her  beloved  brother  in  providing  him  with  the 
means  of  prosecuting  his  studies  at  Oxford. 

With  another  of  her  father's  brothers,  the  Eev.  James 
Landon,  Incumbent  of  Aberford  near  Wetherby  in  York- 
shire, L.  E.  L.  spent  the  Christmas  of  that  year,  and  had 
the  advantage  of  becoming  familiarized  with  the  home 
habits  of  a  well  trained  and  well  informed  circle  of  kins- 
women. 

The  success  of  her  *  Troubadour '  and  '  Sketches '  ex- 
ceeded her  most  sanguine  expectations ;  and  the  profits  of 
this  volume,  as  of  all  her  other  productions,  she  dispensed 
with  an  ungrudging  and  liberal  hand,  among  those  members 
of  her  family  who  stood  most  in  need  of  money  :  reserving 
to  herself  only  a  bare  sufficiency  for  her  maintenance. 
The  gladness  of  literary  triumph  was  painfully  counteracted 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  505 

by  the  promulgation  at  this  time  of  calumnies  which 
haunted  and  troubled  her  whole  future  life.  Popularity 
was  the  idol  of  her  heart ;  to  be  admired  and  beloved  was 
her  prevalent  desire.  Open,  frank,  and  free  in  manner, 
she  disregarded  too  daringly  the  ordinary  formalities  of 
social  life.  Warmly  grateful  for  every  act  of  kindness 
shown  to  her,  unwilling  to  believe  any  evil  of  persons  who 
had  really  befriended  her,  and  conscious  of  innocence,  she 
found  with  scornful  astonishment  that  her  character  was 
traduced,  and  she  imprudently  and  indignantly  refused  to 
give  up  those  intimacies  which  exposed  her  to  censure, 
and  to  alter  the  habits  which  provoked  animosity.  Her 
impulsive  and  incautious  nature,  when  unrestrained  by 
affection  or  the  wish  to  please,  led  her  to  utter  freely  her 
impressions  of  people  and  of  things :  she  talked  at  random 
in  mixed  company,  meant  no  harm,  suspected  none,  and 
kept  neither  watch  nor  ward  against  invidious  observers. 
Her  home  at  this  period,  and  for  several  following  years, 
was  in  Hans  Place,  at  the  house  of  Miss  Kawdon,  her 
former  governess,  with  whom  she  lodged  as  a  parlour 
boarder,  until  Miss  Kawdon,  having  married  the  Comte  de 
St.  Quentin,  at  last  accompanied  him  to  France.  L.  E.  L. 
then  became  the  inmate  of  the  Miss  Lances,  who  carried 
on  the  school. 

She  spent  a  great  part  of  every  day  in  reading ;  seldom 
with  any  direct  and  studious  purpose,  although  much  of 
the  material  acquired  for  mere  amusement  was  afterwards 
wrought  up  in  verse,  or  brought  to  bear  upon  her  prose 
criticisms.  She  had  a  desultory  but  wide  acquaintance  with 
French  and  Italian  literature,  and  read  many  German  books. 

In  the  autumn  of  1826,  she  again  stayed  at  Aberford  for 
some  weeks,  and  also  at  Biggleswade  in  Bedfordshire. 
During  this  period  she  was  occupied  in  preparing  another 


506  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

volume  of  poems  for  the  press;  and  besides  her  regular 
contribution  of  stanzas  to  '  The  Literary  Gazette/  she  sup- 
plied also  critical  reviews  to  that  periodical.  Nevertheless, 
the  stillness  and  uniformity  of  country  life  oppressed  her 
spirits ;  and  writing  to  a  friend,  she  declared  her  strong 
partiality  for  London  as  a  dwelling-place,  in  the  vivacious 
words — "  Well,  give  me  a  metropolitan  £500  a  year,  in 
preference  to  a  rural  £5000."  In  December,  1826,  she 
published  her  *  Golden  Violet,'  *  Erinna,'  and  some  other 
poetical  pieces,  in  one  volume,  which  like  its  predecessors, 
met  with  immediate  and  great  success. 

She  had  been  acquainted  from  childhood  with  Dr. 
Anthony-Todd  Thomson  and  his  family.  His  house  was 
long  her  favourite  place  of  social  resort,  and  she  found  in 
Mrs.  Thomson  not  only  an  intellectual  associate,  but  a 
discreet  adviser  and  a  most  kind  friend.  In  the  year  1828 
she  became  intimate  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall ;  and 
visiting  often  at  their  house,  soon  found  her  social  circle 
advantageously  enlarged.  In  one  memorable  evening,  she 
met  there,  and  saw  for  the  first  time,  William  Wordsworth, 
Allan  Cunningham,  Miss  Edgeworth,  Mrs.  Jameson,  and 
other  celebrated  persons.  Her  biographer,  Mr.  Laman 
Blanchard,  describes  her  as  delighting  in  lively  conversa- 
tion— "  running  on  from  subject  to  subject,  and  lighting 
upon  each  with  a  wit  never  illnatured  and  often  brilliant, 
scattering  opinions  as  thick  as  hail, — opinions  as  wild  as 
the  winds,  defying  fair  argument  to  keep  pace  with  her, 
and  fairly  talking  herself  out  of  breath."  * 

Whatever  her  state  of  mind  might  be,  her  letters  were 
always  cheerful,  and  so  was  her  conversation ;  for  the  same 
desire  to  attract  attention  and  to  please,  which  rendered 
her  elaborate  compositions  mournful,  tended  to  enliven 

*  See  Blanchard's  '  Life  and  Literary  Remains  of  L.  E.  L.,'  vol.  i. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND.  507 

her  social  communications.  Like  a  Toledo  sword,  which 
is  curved  in  its  scabbard  and  straight  when  drawn,  her 
mind  took  different  forms  in  vigorous  action  and  at  rest. 

Her  disposition  was  social,  and  she  enjoyed  all  sociable 
amusements  for  the  sake  of  merry  companionship,  as  well 
as  for  that  of  the  exhilaration  and  excitement  produced  by 
bodily  exercise.  She  was  very  fond  of  dancing,  took  great 
delight  in  witnessing  theatrical  representations ;  but  to  all 
other  enjoyments  preferred  that  of  talking,  in  which  the 
roving  of  her  imagination  seemed  as  wild  and  uncon- 
strained as  in  dreams  or  in  a  waking  reverie,  excepting  only 
that  the  wish  to  surprise  and  please  guided  in  some  degree 
its  irregular  and  meteoric  forces.  She  always  chose  her 
home  among  the  good  and  prudent,  never  allowed  her  im- 
methodical  habits  to  disturb  their  systematic  punctuality, 
and  conformed  to  their  rule  in  attending  divine  service 
at  church  every  Sunday. 

In  1829,  she  published  'The  Venetian  Bracelet,  the 
Lost  Pleiad,  the  History  of  the  Lyre,  and  Other  Poems,'  in 
one  volume,  which  obtained  great  success,  and  sustained 
her  literary  reputation. 

About  this  period  she  wrote  many  pieces  for  'The 
Literary  Souvenir,'  for  '  The  Forget  me  Not,'  and  other 
annuals. 

In  1830,  she  again  spent  several  weeks  with  her  relations 
at  Aberford,  keeping  up,  wherever  she  might  be,  her  habit 
of  miscellaneous  reading,  and  never  remitting  that  assiduous 
application  which  mental  fertility  rendered  agreeable,  and 
the  necessities  of  her  nearest  kinsfolk  enforced. 

In  the  year  1831,  she  published  her  first  novel,  *  Romance 
and  Reality,'  and  it  was  well  received  by  the  public. 

In  the  same  year  her  *  Thirty  Poems,'  illustrative  of  as 
many  engravings,  were  published  in  'Fisher's  Drawing- 


508  LITERARY  WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

room  Scrap-book.'  So  successfully  did  she  accomplish  this 
task,  that  the  book,  instead  of  remaining,  as  at  first  in- 
tended, a  solitary  volume,  became  the  first  of  an  annual 
series,  which  she  continued  to  supply  with  her  productions 
for  eight  successive  years,  among  those  productions  being 
some  of  her  sweetest  poems. 

In  1832,  still  carrying  on  her  previous  literary  engage- 
ments, she  became  a  contributor  to  *  The  New  Monthly 
Magazine/  and  also  wrote  '  Twelve  Pieces/  illustrative  of 
engravings  in  '  The  Easter  Gift,  a  Keligious  Offering.' 

In  1834,  she  published  her  clever  but  baneful  novel, 
'Francesca  Carrara,'  a  proof  of  great  but  ill-directed 
mental  power.  In  the  course  of  the  same  year  she  accom- 
panied Sir  A.  Farquhar  and  his  daughter  to  Paris,  where 
she  spent  several  weeks,  seeing  all  that  great  city  has  to 
show,  and  enjoying  society  which  afforded  exercise  for  her 
darling  occupation  among  the  most  eminent  proficients  in 
the  world  of  the  art  of  talking. 

Towards  the  close  of  this  year  she  furnished  the  illus- 
trative text  for  a  volume  of  Akerman's  '  Flowers  of  Love- 
liness/ and  edited  a  volume  of  Heath's  '  Book  of  Beauty.' 

In  the  year  1835,  a  view  of  Maclise's  celebrated  picture 
called  *  The  Vow  of  the  Peacock/  suggested  to  her  mind  a 
'Lay'  on  the  same  subject.  This  poem,  with  several 
others  to  make  up  a  volume,  she  published  in  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year,  and  to  it  was  prefixed  an  engraving  from 
the  portrait  taken  of  her  by  the  same  painter  whose  inven- 
tive and  artistic  skill  had  prompted  her  own.  These  poems 
received  from  the  public  an  enthusiastic  welcome.  About 
this  period  she  entered  into  a  matrimonial  engagement 
with  a  literary  man,  for  whom  she  entertained  a  high 
esteem.  Thinking  it  due  to  him  to  trace  out  her  calum- 
niators and  to  obtain  a  distinct  refutation  of  the  slanderous 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  509 

reports  which  had  long  ago  been  circulated— in  1836, 
L.  E.  L.  entered  with  a  hopeful  spirit  upon  the  painful  in- 
vestigation ;  but  convinced  at  last  that  voice  is  invisible 
and  echo  intangible,  that  defamation,  like  fire-works,  once 
let  off  must  blaze  and  spread,  and  crackle  until  self- 
exhaustion,  her  heart  sunk,  her  health  gave  way,  and  in 
an  agony  of  suffering  she  renounced  the  engagement. 

Never  remitting  her  literary  toils,  she  continued  occa- 
sionally her  contributions  to  *  The  Literary  Gazette/  regu- 
larly supplied  *  The  Court  Journal '  for  three  years  with 
articles  in  prose  or  verse,  and  sent  some  of  her  choicest 
poetry  to  '  The  New  Monthly  Magazine/ 

In  the  same  year  she  began  to  write  for  Schloss's  *  Fairy 
Almanac/  published  her  '  Traits  and  Trials  of  Early  Life/ 
and  also  her  best  prose  work,  the  celebrated  novel  called 
'Ethel  Churchill.' 

In  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  she  first  became  ac- 
quainted with  Mr.  George  Maclean,  Governor  of  Cape 
Coast  Castle.  His  connection  with  Africa,  the  land  of  her 
juvenile  prepossessions,  gave  him  at  once  a  strong  claim 
upon  her  interest,  and  inclined  her  to  encourage  his  ad- 
dresses. 

In  May,  1837,  appeared  her  '  Birth-day  Tribute  to  the 
Princess  Victoria/ 

Mrs.  Sheldon  having  succeeded  the  Miss  Lances  in  their 
school,  L.  E.  L.  remained  with  her  in  Hans  Place,  and  in 
the  course  of  this  year  removed  with  her  to  Upper 
Berkeley  Street.  From  thence,  after  a  residence  of  a  few 
months,  she  went  as  a  guest  to  the  house  of  a  friend  in 
Hyde  Park  Street ;  and,  various  impediments  to  the  union 
being  at  length  overcome,  she  was  married,  at  the  church 
of  St.  Mary  in  Bryanstone  Square,  to  Mr.  George  Maclean, 
on  the  7th  of  June,  1838,  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton 


510  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

giving  her  away,  and  her  brother,  the  Kev.  Whittington- 
Henry  Landon,  performing  the  ceremony. 

"How  deeply  shall  I  value  praise  when  I  am  away!" 
was  one  of  her  last  sayings  to  her  brother,  on  the  last 
morning  she  spent  in  England.  "  What  will  you  do  with- 
out friends  to  talk  to  ?"  was  one  of  the  last  questions  he 
ever  put  to  her.  Both  these  sentences  convey  significant 
indications  of  character. 

On  the  5th  of  July,  1838,  accompanied  by  her  husband, 
she  embarked  and  set  sail  from  Portsmouth  on  board  the 
ship  '  Maclean,'  bound  for  Cape  Coast. 

The  wish  to  be  admired  and  loved  being  with  her  a  pre- 
valent motive,  and  the  pleasure  of  pleasing  the  keenest  of 
her  enjoyments,  slander  shocked  her  to  the  utmost,  as  a 
direct  contravention  of  her  most  intense  desires.  It  em- 
bittered the  world  to  her,  and  rendered  life  distasteful :  all 
her  small  remainder  of  happiness  being  concentrated  in 
public  applause  and  the  commendation  of  her  dearest 
friends.  She  seems  to  have  thought  that  when  away  from 
England  none  but  pleasant  reverberations  would  reach 
her,  and  does  not  seem  to  have  sufficiently  weighed  her 
own  capabilities  for  enduring  a  monotonous  life  of  almost 
total  solitude. 

On  the  voyage  she  wrote  '  The  Polar  Star '  and  *  The 
Night  at  Sea.'  On  the  16th  of  August  she  landed  at  her 
new  home,  Cape  Coast  Castle.  There  she  industriously 
and  incessantly  occupied  herself  with  household  cares  and 
literary  work,  attending  sedulously  to  her  husband's  com- 
fort, writing  long  letters  to  her  friends  in  England,  re- 
touching her  '  Female  Characters  of  Scott,'  and  her  tragedy 
of '  Castruccio  Castracani,'  and  composing  the  first  volume 
of  a  new  novel,  until,  on  Monday,  the  15th  of  October, 
1838,  she  was  found  senseless  and  dying  upon  the  floor  of 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  511 

IHT  bed-chamber,  and  immediately  afterwards  expired.  An 
empty  phial,  which  had  contained  prussic  acid,  was  grasped 
in  her  hand  ;  but  the  cause  of  her  sudden  death  has  never 
been  ascertained. 

In  childhood  she  had  childhood's  faith,  praying  to  a 
Heavenly  Father  to  bestow  and  to  forgive.  Through  life 
she  practised  the  external  forms  of  religion,  and  had  occa- 
sionally strong  impressions  of  the  exalted  and  lovely  nature 
of  true  piety ;  but  the  griefs,  the  cares,  and  disappoint- 
ments of  life  unveiled  to  her  the  dark  and  evil  desolation 
of  the  human  heart,  without  driving  her  to  seek  its  Divine 
remedy.  The  mysteiy  of  human  existence  ever  afterwards 
appalled  her  spirit,  while  flashes  of  celestial  light  added 
horror  to  darkness,  neither  illuminating  nor  dispersing  the 
gloom. 

Her  character  was  a  mystery  as  well  as  her  fate.  She 
held  certain  principles  which  broadly  fenced  off  right  from 
wrong ;  but  within  their  barrier  she  was  a  reckless  despiser 
of  minor  morals. 

The  perversion  of  aim,  and  the  want  of  steadfast  truth- 
fulness, wrecked  at  once  her  happiness  and  her  usefulness. 
She  was  sincere,  constant,  and  faithful  in  her  attachments, 
and  she  always  meant  kindly  when  she  spoke  so  ;  but  the 
inordinate  wish  to  please  so  biassed  her  mind  that  she 
would  habitually,  and  without  scruple  or  hesitation,  utter 
pleasing  and  flattering  falsehoods. 

The  genius  of  L.  E.  L.  is,  perhaps,  more  out-flashing, 
and  self-relying  in  its  nature,  bolder  and  more  fervid 
in  utterance,  than  that  of  any  other  English  poetess. 
So  wildly  spontaneous  do  her  verses  appear  that  they  ex- 
cite a  pleasing  wonder  by  their  beauty  of  diction  and  their 
melodious  rhythm.  Somewhat  of  the  true  improvisatrice 
charm  accompanies  their  flow,  poured  out  as  they  are  in 


512  LITERARY  WOMEN  OP   ENGLAND. 

haste  and  almost  at  random.  There  is,  perhaps,  something 
like  mechanical  propulsion  in  their  force,  but  the  jet  d'eau 
has  its  beauty  as  well  as  the  cataract. 

Her  longest  poems  show  most  conspicuously  her  defec- 
tiveness  in  the  art  of  composition.  She  could  not  properly 
arrange  a  subject  and  its  accessories,  and  in  trying  to  work 
them  out  made  a  succession  of  visible  efforts,  like  an  im- 
patient horse  breasting  the  mountain  at  a  gallop. 

Her  passionate  power  over  words,  and  success  in  affecting 
the  feelings  of  her  readers,  had  induced  the  belief  that 
she  could  write  a  fine  tragedy,  but  her  '  Castruccio  Castra- 
cani*  belied  her  expectation.  A  good  play,  whether 
tragedy  or  comedy,  ought  to  draw  out  like  a  telescope, 
act  developing  from  act  in  regular  progression  ;  while  the 
dramatic  personages  should  be  reflected  with  the  distinct- 
ness of  a  camera.  This  presupposes  methodical  construc- 
tion and  deliberate  care;  the  comprehensive  realization, 
by  mental  forecast,  of  an  harmonious  whole,  and  the 
accurate  preparation  and  fitting  together  of  its  component 
parts. 

With  this  mechanical  exactitude,  dramatic  composition 
requires  also  the  exercise  of  that  Protean  power  which 
enables  an  author  to  assume  in  turn  the  nature  of  every 
character  which  he  introduces  ;  and  tragedy  imperatively 
demands  that  the  spirit  of  poetry,  if  not  its  rhythmic  attri- 
butes, should  imbue  and  etherialise  the  whole.  None  of 
these  requisitions  met  compliance  in  the  '  Castruccio 
Castracani '  of  L.  E.  L.  Elaboration  did  not  belong  to  her 
style  of  workmanship.  The  mould  of  her  fancy  cast  out 
her  productions  rapidly :  the  patient  chisel  was  not  an  im- 
plement for  her  use.  She  could  not  work  by  rule,  nor 
endure  any  sort  of  constraint. 

Conciseness,  clearness,  and  naturalness  being  specially 


WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 


,  she  fell  of  course  into  diffuseness,  obscurity,  and 
distortion.  In  clipping  ordinary  language  into  blank 
verse,  she  not  only  fails  to  give  it  rhythm  as  poetry,  but 
even  to  make  it  grammatical  as  prose.  No  examples  can 
authorise,  no  genius  sanction  such  an  elliptical  construction 
as  omits  verbs  and  nominative  cases.  There  are  a  few 
fine  thoughts  and  beautiful  lines,  but  the  tragedy  as  a 
whole  is  a  poor  thing,  an  utter  failure,  a  mere  manifesta- 
tion of  incompetence.  It  has  been  plausibly  alleged  that 
the  subject  is  wanting  in  interest  for  an  English  audience  ; 
but  Otway's  '  Venice  Preserved,'  though  liable  to  a  similar 
objection,  achieved  immense  success,  and  is  still  a  standard 
on  the  stage.  Without  a  Belvidera  that  celebrated  tragedy 
must  have  failed  from  the  want  of  the  heroic  element  in 
its  principal  personages,  Pierre  being  a  villain  and  Jaffier  a 
waxen  thing.  The  womanly  instinct  of  L.  E.  L.  was  not 
at  fault  in  the  choice  of  a  subject  ;  dramatic  genius  and 
persevering  application  might  have  rendered  *  Castruccio  ' 
a  British  favourite,  but  her  conception  of  the  hero's 
character  though  fine  was  inadequate,  and  feebly  wrought 
out.  Some  of  the  situations  are  advantageous,  and  might 
have  been  made  effective:  such  as  his  survey  of  the 
family  portraits  in  Count  Arezzi's  hall,  and  the  appearance 
of  Count  Leoni  in  Castruccio's  chamber  through  the 
secret  panel. 

One  glaring  fault  this  unfortunate  tragedy  shares  with 
most  other  plays,  and  with  many  novels  and  romances: 
the  father  of  the  youthful  heroine  being  represented  as  a 
weak  and  worn  down  old  man,  although  mentioned  as 
having  been  a  blooming  youth  at  the  period  of  her  birth. 
Now,  allowing  a  heroine  to  be  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and 
the  father  at  her  birth  to  have  been  twenty-four,  he  must 
have  fallen  into  a  state  of  premature  decrepitude  to  be 

2  L 


514  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

deemed  a  "  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon  "  at  the  age  of 
forty-five ! 

L.  E.  L.,  or  the  editor  of  her  posthumous  works,  has 
spelled  the  name  of  her  tragic  hero  differently  from  the 
way  in  which  Machiavelli,  Sismondi,  or  any  other  historian 
within  the  present  critic's  range  of  reading  has  done.  It 
surely  was  a  mistake  to  write  throughout  '  Castruccio 
Castrucani '  for  Castruccio  Castracani. 

In  writing  reviews  of  books  L.  E.  L.  often  threw  out 
very  beautiful  thoughts,  which  came  like  iridescence  on 
the  wave. 

Opinions  have  been  defined  by  the  greatest  of  our 
philosophers  to  be  only  "knowledge  in  the  making." 
Hers  never  reached  the  concrete  form  of  judgment :  they 
were  often  warped  by  kindness,  never  by  hostility,  and 
always  erred  on  the  indulgent  side. 

The  high  literary  merits  of  her  novels  are  univer- 
sally acknowledged,  as  well  as  their  false  views  of  human 
life. 

Keason  and  conscience  not  having  due  dominion  over 
her  soul,  ideas  and  opinions,  purposes  and  cares,  fancies, 
feelings,  and  impulses,  a  host  of  petty  tyrants,  waywardly 
swayed  both  her  mind  and  heart. 

Not  from  analysis,  but  by  a  clear  and  subtle  insight, 
penetrating  and  revealing  at  a  flash  the  depths  of  her 
poetic  nature,  she  was  able  to  discern  and  to  promulgate 
many  facts  relating  to  that  nature,  and  generally  true  of 
women  of  genius. 

Thus,  writing  of  Flora  Mac  Ivor,  she  says : — "  I  believe 
that  the  imaginative  and  the  highly-gifted  are  the  least 
susceptible  ;  when  they  do  love,  it  is  with  the  depth  and  the 
energy  to  which  themselves  give  strength ;  but  the  imagi- 
nation rarely  at  first  seeks  an  object  where  it  must  de- 


I.ITKKAKY    \VoMKN    OF    ENGLAND.  ~>  1  ."> 

pend ;  it  likes  to  feel  its  freedom,  and  its  earliest  pursuit 
is  usually  unselfish  and  abstract."  *  This  resembles 
Pascal's  thought : — "  Les  grandes  ames  ne  sont  pas  celles 
qui  aiment  le  plus  souvent,"  &c. 

A  belief  in  the  enduring  value  of  a  poet's  enthusiastic 
affection  is  likewise  a  property  of  that  class  of  women. 

"  A  poet's  love 

Is  immortality.     The  heart  whose  beat 
Is  echoed  by  the  lyre  will  have  its  griefs, 
Its  tenderness  remembered,  when  each  pulse 
Has  long  been  cold  and  still."  f 

The  last  stanza  of  '  The  Awakening  of  Endymion '  ex- 
presses another  peculiarity  of  such  minds. 

"  When  every  worldly  thought  is  utterly  forsaken, 
Comes  the  starry  midnight,  felt  by  life's-gifted  few, 

Then  will  the  spirit  from  its  earthly  sleep  awaken 
To  a  being  more  intense,  more  spiritual  and  true. 

So  doth  the  soul  awaken, 

Like  that  youth  to  Night's  fair  Queen." 

This  awakening  seems  to  belong  rather  to  the  intellect 
than  to  the  heart,  and  to  fall  far  short  of  that  divine  en- 
lightenment which  involves  a  rectification  and  renewal  of 
the  whole  bent  and  stress  of  the  soul. 

Several  of  her  later  writings  are  replete  with  good  feel- 
ing. Referring  to  the  sacred  poems  which  she  wrote  for 
*  The  Easter  Offering,'  she  says  : — "  They  were  written  in 
a  spirit  of  the  deepest  humility,  but  whose  fear  is  not  of 

this  world I  believe  I  myself  am  the  better 

for  their  existence ;  I  wish  their  effect  may  be  the  same 
on  others.  In  this  hurrying  and  deceitful  world,  no  page 
will  be  written  utterly  in  vain  which  awakens  one  earnest 
or  heavenward  thought,  one  hope,  or  one  fear  in  the 
human  heart." 

Her  poem  entitled  *  We  Might  have  Been '  is  deeply 

*  *  Female  Portrait  Gallery,  Waverley.'    •  Life  and  Literary  Remains,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  *».  t  'Minstrel  of  Portugal.' 

2  L  2 


516  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF  ENGLAND. 

touching  as  an  evidence  of  regret  for  time  and  talents 
misapplied ;  and  the  following  fragment  is  still  more  so. 
GIFTS  MISUSED. 

"  Oh  !  what  a  waste  of  feeling  and  of  thought 
Have  been  the  imprints  on  my  roll  of  life  ! 
What  worthless  hours  !     To  what  use  have  I  turned 
The  golden  gifts  which  are  my  hope  and  pride  ? 
My  power  of  song,  unto  how  base  a  use 
Has  it  been  put !    With  its  pure  ore,  I  made 
An  idol,  living  only  on  the  breath 
Of  idol-worshippers.     Alas !  that  ever 
Praise  should  have  been  what  praise  has  been  to  me — 
The  opiate  of  the  mind  I"  * 

The  following  pieces  are   more   characteristic  of  her 

ordinary  style. 

THE  HEART'S  OMENS. 

"  I  felt  my  sorrow  ere  it  came, 

As  storms  are  felt  on  high, 

Before  a  single  cloud  denote 

Their  presence  in  the  sky. 

The  heart  has  omens  deep  and  true, 

That  ask  no  aid  from  words  ; 
Like  viewless  music  from  the  harp 

With  none  to  wake  its  chords. 

Strange,  subtle  are  these  mysteries, 

And  linked  with  unknown  powers, 
Marking  mysterious  links  that  bind 

The  spirit  world  to  ours."  t 

THE  POET'S  POWER. 

"  Oh!  never  had  the  poet's  lute  a  hope, 
An  aim  so  glorious  as  it  now  may  have, 
In  this  our  social  state,  where  petty  cares 
And  mercenary  interests  only  look 
Upon  the  present's  littleness,  and  shrink 
From  the  bold  future,  and  the  stately  past — 
Where  the  smooth  surface  of  society 
Is  polished  by  deceit,  and  the  warm  heart, 
With  all  its  kind  affection's  early  flow, 
Flung  back  upon  itself,  forgets  to  beat, 
At  least  for  others : — 'tis  the  poet's  gift 
To  melt  these  frozen  waters  into  tears, 
By  sympathy  with  sorrows  not  our  own. 


*  Life  and  Literary  Kemains,'  vol.  ii.  p.  277.  f  Ibid.  p.  288. 


LITE11A11Y   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  517 

By  wakening  memory  with  those  mournful  notes . 
Whoso  music  is  the  thoughts  of  early  years, 
When  truth  was  on  the  lip,  and  feelings  wore 
The  sweetness  and  the  freshness  of  the  morn. 
Young  poet,  if  thy  dreams  have  not  such  hopo 
To  purify,  refine,  exalt,  subdue, 
To  touch  the  selfish  and  to  shame  the  vain 
Out  of  themselves,  by  gentle  mournfulness, 
Or  chords  that  rouse  some  aim  of  enterprise 
Lofty  and  pure,  and  meant  for  general  good ; 
If  thou  hast  not  some  power  that  may  direct 
The  mind  from  the  mean  round  of  daily  life, 
Waking  affections  that  might  else  have  slept ; 
Or  high  resolves,  the  petrified  before  ; 
Or  rousing  in  that  mind  a  finer  sense 
Of  inward  and  external  loveliness, 
Making  imagination  serve  as  guide 
To  all  of  heaven  that  yet  remains  on  earth, 
Thine  is  a  useless  lute  :  break  it  and  die  ! "  * 

Soon  after  her  decease,  her  'Zenana'  and  some  other 
poems  were  published,  together  with  a  slight  Memoir  by 
Miss  Emma  Koberts. 

In  1841,  Mr.  Laman  Blanchard  published  'The  Life 
and  Literary  remains  of  L.  E.  L.,'  comprising  extracts 
from  her  missive  letters,  her  tragedy  of '  Castruccio  Cas- 
trucani,  or  the  Triumph  of  Luca,'  'The  Female  Picture 
Gallery,'  '  Subjects  for  Pictures,'  '  Miscellaneous  Poems,' 
'Fragments,'  and  'Fugitive  Poems.'  In  these,  as  in  all 
her  previous  works,  her  fine  ideas  may  be  compared  to 
gems  of  high  intrinsic  worth,  not  only  ill  set,  but  ill  cut, 
flawed,  and  scarcely  throwing  out  half  their  proper  bril- 
liancy. 

Her  works  continue  to  be  popular:  the  fascination  of 
real  genius,  and  the  charm  which  belongs  to  the  spring- 
flood  of  feeling  are  likely  to  make  them  so  with  many 
generations  of  English  youths  and  maidens  of  unsettled 
principles.  Her  poems  have  been  collected,  and  are  pub- 
lished in  one  and  in  two  volumes  by  Messrs.  Longman. 

*  '  A  History  of  the  Lyre.' 


518  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

Although  she  was  neither  a  plagiarist  nor  an  imitator,  her 
inspiration  is  obviously  Byronic.  The  want  of  consistent 
truthfulness,  and  the  indulgence  of  reverie  spoilt  her  fine 
mind,  as  dodder  spoils  the  rose. 

Abstract  thought,  directed  by  intention,  is  the  most 
laborious,  the  most  profitable,  and  the  most  ennobling 
exercise  of  the  human  spirit.  It  comprehends,  and  it  ap- 
propriates, all  the  benefits  derivable  from  personal  obser- 
vation and  experience,  from  social  intercourse,  from  books, 
and  from  every  other  means  of  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual 
instruction.  It  is  also  the  hallowed  vehicle  of  Divine 
communion.  Keverie  is  not  an  act :  it  is  merely  a  passive 
state,  wherein  all  the  higher  faculties,  with  their  agent, 
common  sense,  lie  dormant ;  while  wayward  memory  and 
fugitive  sensations  sport  with  the  slumbering  fancy.  A 
fine  mind  in  reverie  is  like  a  bardic  harp  abandoned  and 
exposed  to  unskilled  hands,  wild  winds,  and  casual  weather. 
Yet  for  a  while  it  utters  sweet  and  powerful  tones,  but 
slackening  wires,  breaking  strings,  and  a  decaying  frame, 
too  soon  foretell  approaching  ruin.  It  is  a  poor  excuse  for 
this  baneful  habit  to  allege  that  the  current  of  indulged 
ideas  is  innocent,  and  recreative  to  a  weary  mind.  Such, 
doubtless,  may  often  be  the  case ;  for  the  prevalent  dis- 
position of  the  individual  will  generally  be  found  to  in- 
fluence both  the  waking  and  sleeping  dreams.  But  the 
fact  that  a  powerful  horse  has  now  and  then  with  impunity 
been  trusted  with  the  reins  upon  his  neck,  would  afford 
no  great  security  for  the  rider's  safety  in  taking  off  the 
bit  and  bridle,  and  committing  the  animal  freely  to.  his 
uncontrolled  caprices.  No  recreations  ought  to  be  consi- 
dered lawful  but  such  as  fit  us  for  renewed  labour.  Eeverie 
therefore,  is  not  allowable.  In  truth,  it  is  altogether  mis- 
chievous— destructive  to  some  minds,  and  injurious  to  all. 


LITERARY   WOMlN   OF   ENGLAND.  519 


CHAPTEK  XIX. 

A.D.  1838.     NOVEMBER. 

THE  POETESSES. 

Anne  Grant. 


In  youth  she  was  lovely  ;  and  Time, 
When  her  rose  with  the  cypress  he  twined, 

Left  the  heart  all  the  warmth  of  its  prime, 
Left  her  eye  all  the  light  of  her  mind."— CROLY. 


ANNE  GRANT. 

DUNCAN  MACVICAR,  a  Highland  gentleman,  married  in 
the  year  1753  a  Stewart  of  Invernahyle,  and  changing 
agricultural  occupations  for  commercial  pursuits,  took  up 
his  residence  in  the  city  of  Glasgow,  where  he  had  many 
good  friends.  He  was  an  upright  and  pious  man,  with  a 
talent  and  tendency  for  money  making.  His  wife  was  a 
good  and  prudent  woman,  of  cheerful  disposition,  narrow 
understanding,  and  notable  habits.  There  was  much  moral 
elevation  in  the  characters  of  both,  and  the  consciousness 
of  their  good  Celtic  blood  refined  their  manners,  though  it 
flowed  not  very  warmly  through  their  hearts.  Their  only 
child,  Anne  Macvicar,  was  bom  at  Glasgow,  on  the  21st  of 
February,  1755,  and  nursed  in  the  mountain  home  of  her 
maternal  forefathers  until  she  was  eighteen  months  old. 
In  the  year  1757,  Duncan  Macvicar,  having  obtained  a 
commission  in  the  77th  Eegiment  of  Foot,  went  out  to 


520  LITERARY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

America,  leaving  his  wife  and  daughter  at  Glasgow.  Mrs. 
Macvicar  some  time  afterwards  received  his  directions  to 
follow  him;  and  accompanied  by  their  little  Anne,  she 
landed  at  Charleston  in  the  year  1758,  and  took  up  her 
temporary  abode  at  Albany.  Mr.  Macvicar,  having  ex- 
changed into  the  55th  Kegiment,  and  being  much  trusted 
by  the  commandant  as  a  steady  and  clever  man  of  busi- 
ness, was  sent  down  from  head-quarters  at  Oswego  on 
Lake  Ontario  to  buy  stores,  with  leave  of  absence  to  visit 
his  family.  On  his  return,  he  took  his  wife  and  child  with 
him  to  the  garrison,  travelling  in  a  boat  up  the  river.  He 
served  in  the  disastrous  attack  on  Ticonderoga,  July  8, 
1758,  when  seven  of  his  brother  officers  were  killed.  On 
the  declaration  of  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  France 
in  1762,  the  55th  Kegiment  was  ordered  to  New  York, 
previous  to  embarkation  for  England.  The  Macvicars 
returning  by  the  river  from  Oswego  to  Albany,  became 
intimate  with  the  celebrated  Madame  Schuyler,  who  had 
then  left  her  mansion  on  the  The  Flats,  and  become  a 
resident  in  that  town.  Mr.  Macvicar  retiring  on  half-pay 
from  the  army  in  1765,  received  a  grant  of  land  from 
Government,  and  purchased  from  two  of  his  brother  offi- 
cers the  lands  which  had  been  also  assigned  to  them. 
These,  lying  together,  and  promising  when  cleared  to 
become  a  fertile  and  profitable  estate,  Mr.  Macvicar 
employed  persons  to  survey  and  map  them,  reasonably 
expecting  that  his  "  Township  of  Clarendon  "  would  in  a 
few  years  become  a  very  valuable  property.  Meanwhile, 
in  order  to  negotiate  with  persons  desirous  of  settling  on  his 
estate,  and  to  watch  the  social  changes  consequent  upon  the 
termination  of  the  war,  he  became  the  tenant  of  Madame 
Schuyler's  new  house  at  The  Flats,  in  the  township  of 
Claverac,  and  of  a  few  adjacent  acres  of  land.  At  this 


LITERARY   WOMEN   Of   ENGLAND.  521 

period  of  her  life,  little  Anne  had  two  homes,  usually 
spending  the  summer  with  her  parents,  and  the  winter 
with  Madame  Schuyler  at  Albany.  Madame  Schuyler 
became  the  Minerva  of  her  imagination,  and  the  affections 
of  the  energetic  child,  as  well  as  the  varied  powers  of  her 
active  and  original  mind,  grew  and  flourished  under  the 
judicious  culture  of  that  wise  and  excellent  woman.  Under 
her  inspection,  Anne  Macvicar  became  conversant  with  all 
the  details  of  a  large  and  well  regulated  domestic  establish- 
ment, was  trained  to  habits  of  orderly  arrangement,  and  to 
the  methodical  disposal  of  time.  She  daily  saw  the  negroes 
working  at  all  kinds  of  trades,  and  thus  became  acquainted 
with  the  materials  used  and  the  processes  employed. 

She  had  lived  beside  vast  lakes,  magnificent  rivers,  and 
primaeval  forests.  She  knew  by  sight  and  name  the  dif- 
ferent species  of  fish;  when  the  sturgeons  were  to  be 
expected,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  fishermen  followed 
and  caught  them  by  torch-light.  She  could  tell  by  the 
altered  sounds  of  the  waterfall  each  coming  change  of 
wind  and  weather.  By  making  incisions  in  the  bark  of 
trees,  she  could  ascertain  the  points  of  the  compass :  the 
frigid  northern  blasts  always  thickening  the  side  exposed 
to  them.  She  could  discern  the  nature  of  soils  by  the 
vegetation  they  produced.  She  was  acquainted  with  the 
haunts  of  wild  animals,  from  the  deer  to  the  squirrel,  from 
the  wolf  to  the  rat. 

She  knew  all  the  amphibious  birds  of  the  Hudson 
river,  from  the  bald-headed  eagle  to  the  curlew  ;  all  the 
water-fowl,  from  the  scarlet-headed  duck  to  the  didapper. 
She  had  learned  their  periods  of  migration  and  those  of 
the  land-birds,  the  setting  forth  of  their  flights  at  dawn, 
their  noon-day  resting-places,  and  their  night  shelters. 
She  was  familiar  with  the  notes,  plumage,  and  habits  of 


522  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

forty  different  kinds,  and  with  their  several  nests  and  eggs. 
She  also  knew  the  different  species  of  insects,  and  the 
different  kinds  of  grain  on  which  they  fed. 

She  had  seen  the  dykes  of  the  beavers,  and  the  lurking 
holes  of  the  snakes.  She  had  learned  the  local  name,  the 
properties  and  uses  of  every  tree,  shrub,  and  plant ;  and 
which  crops  might  most  profitably  be  raised  on  each  soil, 
and  in  succession  to  each  other:  that  the  land  where 
chesnut-trees  grow  wild  is  good  for  wheat ;  that  where  the 
white  oak  trees  grew,  the  maize  would  thrive  and  pastures 
flourish;  that  where  wild  strawberries  abound,  they  be- 
token a  fertile  soil. 

She  had  received  ocular  demonstration  of  the  advan- 
tages of  commerce,  seeing  the  productions  of  different 
countries,  and  of  different  parts  of  the  same  country  ex- 
changed; and  had  been  early  initiated  in  politics  by 
hearing  discussions  upon  the  characters  and  interests  of 
various  tribes  and  nations. 

She  had  lived  among  Dutch  settlers,  French  Huguenots, 
English  soldiers,  negro  slaves,  arid  Mohawk  Indians.  She 
had  learned  the  language  of  Holland  among  her  young 
friends  at  Albany,  and  shared  their  summer  recreation  of 
canoeing  to  the  islets,  and  jaunting  in  little  horse-chairs  to 
the  bush.  Their  winter  diversion  of  sledging  down  the 
slope  she  had  refused  to  partake,  but  had  practised  it 
alone.  She  had  frequented  the  summer  wigwams  of  the 
Indians,  admired  the  native  dignity  of  their  sachems,  and 
the  grave  calm  courage  of  the  warrior  hunters.  She  could 
talk  their  language  sufficiently  well  to  make  herself  under- 
stood by  those  women  and  children  who  were  accustomed 
to  European  intercourse,  and  she  took  pleasure  in  watching 
the  progress  of  their  ingenious  handicrafts,  their  prepara- 
tion of  the  birch-wood  and  bark,  and  of  deer-skins,  their 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         5'23 

dyeing,  and  platting,  crochet  and  embroidery,  and  wood- 
carving. 

All  this  palpable,  visible,  and  experimental  knowledge, 
Anne  Macvicar  had  amassed  by  the  time  that  she  was  ten 
years  of  age.  Her  acquaintance  with  books  at  that  period 
was  proportionately  small.  Soon  after  her  arrival  in 
America,  she  had  been  taught  needlework  and  the  elements 
of  reading  by  her  mother,  and  a  soldier  had  given  her  les- 
sons in  pot-hooks,  hangers,  and  joining-hand.  The  family 
Bible,  and  a  Scotch  Serjeant's  copy  of  Blind  Harry's 
'  \Yallace '  were  the  earliest  books  to  which  she  had  access, 
and  she  derived  from  studying  the  latter  on  the  banks  of 
Lake  Ontario  an  enthusiastic  feeling  for  Scotland,  which 
lasted  through  life. 

On  the  voyage  back  to  Albany,  from  the  garrison  at 
Oswego,  staying  a  while  at  Fort  Bruerton,  where  a  com- 
pany of  the  55th  Kegmient  was  stationed,  Captain  Camp- 
bell, the  commander,  pleased  with  her  way  of  reading,  her 
manifestations  of  memoiy,  and  her  unusual  quickness  of 
intellect,  presented  her  with  an  illustrated  copy  of  the 
4  Paradise  Lost,'  of  which  the  pictures  had  charmed  her. 
This,  with  the  aid  of  a  tattered  copy  of  'Bailey's  Dic- 
tionary,' she  learned  at  last  to  understand.  It  served  her 
in  the  first  instance  as  a  vocabulary,  then  as  a  story  book, 
and  subsequently  as  an  incentive  to  all  pure,  exalted,  and 
poetical  aspirations.  Ordinary  readers,  perplexed  by  the 
multiplicity  of  books,  are  quite  unaware  of  the  vast  amount 
of  valuable  matter  which  can  be  squeezed,  pressed,  ex- 
tracted, and  decocted  out  of  one  single  book ;  and  never 
will  make  the  discovery  until  other  resources  are  cut 
off. 

At  Madame  Schuyler's,  Anne  Macvicar  became  ac- 
quainted with  Shakspeare,  Pope,  Addison,  and  a  few  other 


524  LITERACY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

standard  authors.  She  also  took  lessons  in  geography  and 
the  use  of  the  globes  from  the  Dutch  chaplain.  Her  prin- 
cipal advantage,  however,  consisted  in  oral  instructions 
received  from  that  pious  and  benevolent  woman,  and  from 
listening  to  the  conversations  held  by  her  monitress  with 
the  most  cultivated  and  intelligent  of  the  military  officers 
who  filled  the  highest  stations  in  the  colony. 

Disgusted  with  the  new  settlers,  sick  of  that  malady 
peculiar  to  the  natives  of  mountain  lands,  and  worn  by  the 
pains  of  rheumatism,  brought  on  by  exposure  to  damp  and 
cold  while  in  the  keen  pursuit  of  game,  Mr.  Mac  vicar  sud- 
denly resolved  on  returning  with  his  wife  and  daughter  to 
Scotland.  His  neighbour,  Captain  Munro,  consented  to 
take  charge  of  the  "  Township  of  Clarendon,"  and  with  a 
reasonable  expectation  of  deriving  from  thence  in  a  few 
years  a  competent  income,  and  of  securing  an  ample  in- 
heritance for  his  child,  he  took  a  hasty  leave  of  his  Ame- 
rican friends,  embarked,  and  reappeared  in  the  city  of 
Glasgow  in  the  year  1768.  There,  among  the  wealthy  and 
pious  inhabitants  who  were  friends  of  her  parents,  Anne 
Macvicar  found  several  amiable  girls  of  her  own  age,  and 
more  especially  two  sisters  named  Pagan,  afterwards  better 
known  as  Mrs.  Smith  and  Mrs.  Brown,  with  whom,  during 
the  three  following  years,  she  cultivated  an  intimate 
friendship,  productive  of  mutual  improvement  and  happi- 
ness. The  change  of  scene  and  of  circumstances  proved 
to  her  a  marked  era  in  educational  progress,  and  among 
grave  people,  old  books,  and  old  recollections,  in  a  former 
stronghold  of  the  Covenanters,  her  knowledge  of  history 
and  of  piety  received  large  accessions.  Her  father  had 
again  employed  himself  in  commerce,  but  he  resigned  that 
occupation  and  accepted  the  appointment  of  barrack- 
master  at  Fort  Augustus,  in  the  county  of  Inverness,  in 


T.1TKUA1IY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  .r)2f) 

tlu»  your  1773,  and  immediately  removed  thither  with  his 
family. 

There,  for  six  years,  Anne  Mac  vicar  lived  an  object  of 
general  regard  among  the  families  of  the  military  officers, 
nnd  the  inhabitants  of  the  Strathmore,  while  diligently  en- 
deavouring to  improve  her  understanding,  and  to  discipline 
her  will,  and  practising  literary  composition  in  writing 
letters  to  her  Lowland  and  other  friends,  and  in  occasional 
sallies  of  poetry. 

The  chaplain  of  Fort  Augustus  was  a  young  clergyman 
named  Grant,  who,  in  the  year  1776,  was  presented  to  the 
neighbouring  living  of  Laggan.  He  had  no  fortune,  but 
was  a  gentleman  by  birth,  and  connected  with  the  best 
families  in  the  county.  Handsome,  well-informed,  refined, 
and  deeply  pious,  he  won  Anne  Macvicar's  heart ;  and, 
with  the  full  approval  of  their  respective  friends,  they 
were  married  in  May,  1779.  Her  parents,  soon  after  this 
event,  removed  to  Fort  George,  where  Mr.  Mac  vicar  was 
appointed  barrack-master.  Mr.  Grant  was  both  mentally 
and  physically  of  a  delicate  constitution,  his  temper  was 
gentle,  his  disposition  reserved  and  somewhat  fastidious, 
and  his  strong,  cheerful,  and  affectionate  wife  became  at 
once  and  for  ever  the  whole  world  to  him.  Their  cottage 
home  at  Laggan  was  fifty  miles  from  Perth,  and  the  same 
distance  from  Inverness,  and  these  were  the  nearest  towns. 
They  rented  a  small  farm  from  the  Duke  of  Gordon  as  an 
additional  source  of  income,  and  with  the  glebe  land  and 
clerical  stipend  rejoiced  contentedly  in  the  chosen  lot  of 
Agur — "neither  poverty  nor  riches" — though  ceaseless 
and  laborious  activity  on  her  part  was  requisite  to  preserve 
the  equilibrium,  the  smaller  scale  being  always  ready  to 
preponderate. 

Soon  after  her  marriage  she  gratuitously  received  into 


526  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

her  family  Charlotte  Grant,  a  young  girl  who  was  her  hus- 
band's near  kinswoman.  Mrs.  Grant  not  only  treated  her 
with  maternal  kindness,  but  made  on  her  the  first  experi- 
ment of  that  excellent  method  of  moral  training  and  intel- 
lectual culture  which  Mrs.  Grant  in  after  years  applied  so 
successfully  to  her  own  children  and  to  many  pupils.  The 
grateful  Charlotte  amply  repaid  her  benefactress  by  im- 
proving under  her  instructions,  and  by  the  most  affectionate 
and  self-denying  devotion  to  her  and  to  her  children. 

At  Laggan  Mrs.  Grant  lived  not  only,  as  she  expressed 
it,  in  "  a  kind  of  negative  elegance,"  but! in  "  ease,  liberty, 
and  a  kind  of  rough  plenty."  Nor  was  she  altogether  shut 
out  from  society.  Many  of  the  scattered  neighbours  were 
of  gentle  blood  and  well  bred,  had  travelled  abroad,  and 
collected  stores  of  varied  information.  Almost  every  year 
she  managed  to  get  a  few  weeks'  holidays,  visited  her  kins- 
folk and  acquaintance  in  different  parts  of  the  Strathmore, 
her  parents,  and  her  favourite  friends  at  Glasgow ;  the 
good  horse,  "Paddy,"  who  would  draw  their  four-wheel 
carriage  as  willingly  as  a  hay-cart,  greatly  facilitating 
these  recreative  migrations. 

The  picturesque  attire  of  the  Gaelic  Celts  pleased  her 
fancy,  and  especially  that  of  the  elder  women,  who,  retain- 
ing the  erect  and  elastic  bearing  of  their  prime,  and  the 
freshness  of  complexion  which  usually  belongs  only  to 
youth,  with  the  serenity  of  countenance  peculiar  to  happy 
old  age,  attended  Divine  service  during  the  winter,  with 
kerchiefed  heads,  and  bodies  wrapped  in  bright-coloured 
plaid  cloaks,  each  fastened  by  a  circular  brooch  of  polished 
silver.  Their  strong  family  affections,  their  local  and  fan- 
ciful traditions,  their  talents  for  music  and  poetry,  their 
spontaneous  eloquence,  their  refinement  of  feeling,  and 
their  native  courtesy,  would  have  attracted  her  admiration 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  527 

had  she  been  a  stranger  unbound  by  any  ties  of  consan- 
guinity ;  and  the  Highlanders  were  still  further  endeared 
to  her  as  the  fellow-countrymen  of  her  parents  and  their 
ancestors,  of  her  husband  and  his  clansmen,  and  of  her 
darling  children.  Her  own  earliest  footsteps  had  been  set 
on  Highland  ground,  and  the  separation  during  childhood 
from  the  land  of  her  race  had  only  enabled  her,  on  return- 
ing to  it,  better  to  discern,  and  more  clearly  to  discriminate, 
their  simple  and  noble  characteristics.  The  power  of 
drawing  contrasts  seems,  under  all  circumstances,  to  be  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  just  estimation ;  and  judgment  con- 
curring with  affection  gives  strength  and  force  to  national 
preferences.  The  Celts  were  shy  of  her  at  first,  deeming 
her  a  stranger,  but  they  soon  learned  to  love  her  for  her 
own  sake  as  well  as  for  her  husband's. 

Writing  on  the  19th  of  February,  1821,  to  Mrs.  Hook, 
of  Mr.  Grant's  Celtic  parishioners,  she  states : — "  I  was 
assiduous  in  learning  the  language  of  the  country  where 
my  lot  was  thrown.  Long  days  have  I  knit  my  stocking, 
or  carried  an  infant  from  sheaf  to  sheaf,  sitting  and  walk- 
ing by  turns  in  the  harvest  field,  attentively  observing 
conversation,  which  for  the  first  years  of  my  residence  in 
the  Highlands,  I  was  not  supposed  to  understand.  Seldom 
a  day  passed  that  I  did  not  find  two  or  three  petitioners 
in  the  kitchen,  respectfully  entreating  for  advice,  medicine, 
or  some  petty  favour.  Often  I  sat  down  with  them  and  led 
them  to  converse,  captivated  with  the  strength  and  beauty 
of  their  expressions  in  their  native  tongue." 

Thus  she  made  herself  acquainted  with  the  Gaelic 
language,  and  was  able  not  only  to  speak  it  with  the 
people,  and  to  understand  the  religious  services  which  her 
husband  performed  in  it,  but  to  enter  into  its  poetic 
beauty,  and  to  translate  the  compositions  both  of  ancient 


528  LITERAllY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  modern  bards.  Loving  and  admiring  the  Highland 
character,  and  ever  ready  to  exclaim  with  Beranger,  "  La 
langue,  la  langue !  c'est  Fame  des  peuples  !"  She  took 
care  that  it  should  be  the  first  language  her  children 
spoke,  and  would  not  teach  them  a  word  of  English  until 
they  were  four  or  five  years  old. 

According  to  the  Highland  custom,  detachments  of  the 
family  were  sent  to  the  "  summer  shealings," — cottages,  or 
huts  in  the  glens,  near  the  mountain  pastures  of  the  milch 
cows  and  goats,  the  sheep  and  ponies.  In  charge  of  trusty 
servants,  several  of  the  children  accompanied  the  dairy 
migration  in  order  that  they  might  be  inured  to  habits  of 
rural  simplicity  and  hardihood.  Beds  and  furniture  were  sent 
with  them,  and  the  man  who  weekly  carried  home  supplies 
of  milk,  butter,  and  cheese  fetched  provisions  from  home, 
and  conveyed  orders  and  intelligence.  If  a  new  "  byre  " 
was  wanting  on  their  farm,  neighbours  must  be  sent  to  the 
oak  wood  to  cut  the  timber,  and  Mrs.  Grant  must  supply  a 
sufficient  stock  of  bread  and  cheese  to  last  them  through 
as  many  days  as  the  employment  would  detain  them. 

Then,  two  out  of  her  three  maid-servants  being  away  at 
the  "  shealings,"  she  had  to  direct  and  assist  the  remaining 
one,  not  only  in  taking  care  of  the  younger  children,  and 
in  ordinary  household  affairs,  but  in  preparing  food  for 
twenty  people  who  were  busy  in  the  moss,  cutting  fuel  for 
the  use  of  the  house  through  the  winter. 

Autumn  brought  the  return  of  the  pastoral  people  from 
the  glens,  reminding  her  of  patriarchal  life  and  the  plains 
of  Mamre,  and  turning  her  attention  to  fields  of  potatoes 
promising  food,  and  to  fields  of  flax  promising  linen  for 
her  household.  The  woollen  used  in  her  family  was  grown 
by  her  own  sheep,  and  spun,  like  the  flax,  by  herself  and 
her  maidens.  There  were  also  the  hay  and  corn  harvests, 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  529 

with  joyous  harvest-homes;  her  merry  children  riding  in 
the  returning  waggons,  or  helping  to  glean  for  the  poor,  or 
watching  the  formation  of  the  stacks. 

When  any  of  the  glebe  tenants,  or  labourers,  or  servants 
married,  she,  with  a  genial  heart  rejoicing  in  their  joy, 
would  preside  at  the  feast,  supply  the  table  plenteously, 
and  at  once  sanction  and  control  the  gaiety  of  their  rural 
dances. 

On  Sundays,  when  the  Lord's  Supper  was  administered 
by  Mr.  Grant  in  the  parish  church,  a  large  and  widely 
scattered  congregation  attending  the  lengthened  service 
made  tacit  demands  on  Mrs.  Grant's  hospitality.  Many  of 
them  were  brought  to  the  cottage  for  refreshment,  some  of 
them  stayed  all  night,  and  the  assistant  ministers  made  it 
for  the  time  their  home. 

Writing  to  Mrs.  Fletcher  on  the  26th  July,  1820,  she 
remarks: — "I  can  easily  conceive  what  a  tent-preaching 
in  the  Highlands  would  be  to  you :  attire  so  suited  to  the 
scene,  devotional  feeling  quiet  from  its  depth  and  intense- 
ness,  Christians  (humble,  and  therefore  real  Christians) 
sitting  as  it  were  under  the  immediate  eye  of  Heaven,  and 
psalmody  resounding  in  the  open  air  to  Him  whose  temple 
is  all  space." 

Sometimes  she  had  the  gratification  of  receiving  her 
favourite  friends  under  her  hospitable  cottage-roof,  and  of 
entertaining  them  there  for  many  weeks.  Often  her 
liberal  hand  sent  to  their  habitations  presents  of  game, 
poultry,  and  cheese,  from  her  Highland  home. 

The  first  great  trouble  she  ever  felt  was  the  death  of 
her  second  son,  a  child  of  four  years  old,  gifted  with  re- 
markable strength  and  beauty,  and  with  precocious  talents. 
In  a  year  or  two  afterwards  she  also  lost  twin  daughters. 
Her  elder  children,  two  or  three  at  a  time,  generally 

2  M 


530  LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

resided  with  her  parents,  who,  in  the  year  1794,  left  Fort 
George  and  took  a  house  in  the  city  of  Glasgow,  where 
the  grandchildren  enjoyed  many  educational  advantages. 

On  the  death  of  a  favourite  companion  of  her  girlhood, 
Mrs.  Grant  took  one  of  the  little  orphan  children  of  that 
friend  and  placed  it  in  her  own  populous  nursery  ;  and 
Charlotte  Grant  marrying  and  dying  early,  she  comforted 
the  desolate  widower  by  taking  charge  also  of  her  child. 

Notwithstanding  her  manifold  avocations,  she  never 
neglected  to  instruct  her  daughters  in  needlework,  and  to 
practise  it  herself  in  all  its  forms. 

"  Needlework,  good,  old,  court  needlework,  is  the  thing ! 
It  exercises  fancy,  fixes  attention,  and,  by  perseverance 
and  excellence  in  it,  habituates  the  mind  to  patient 
application,  and  to  those  peaceful  and  still-life  pleasures 
which  form  the  chief  enjoyment  of  every  truly  amiable 
woman.''  * 

Women  who  scorn,  or  who  affect  to  scorn,  that  employ- 
ment which  nature  and  art  mark  out  as  peculiarly  their 
own,  do  unintentionally  declare  themselves  to  possess 
narrow  and  ill-balanced  minds. 

Most  justly  did  she  say  of  herself  that  she  was  "  full  of 
affection,  and  loved  everything  and  everybody  from  the 
wren  to  the  elephant."  She  applied  that  description  only 
to  her  youth,  but  it  was  appropriate  all  her  life  long. 
She  had  also,  as  a  counterpart,  "  an  inordinate  avarice 
of  affection,"  and  the  love  of  pleasing  was,  perhaps,  her 
foible. 

Probationary  discipline  is  always  adapted  to  individual 

character,  and  often  consists  in  a  series  of  afflictions  alike 

in  kind.     It  was  so  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Grant.     She  liked 

to   be   in   easy   circumstances   because   she   delighted  in 

*  '  Letters  from  the  Mountains,'  vol.  iii.  p.  299,  ed.  1. 


or     FNi.l    \NI).  .").•{! 

making  people  comfortable  and  happy,  but  her  husband 
and  children  were  the  objects  of  almost  adoring  love. 

The  transatlantic  estate  on  which  her  father  had  laid 
out  so  much  money,  and  bestowed  so  much  toilsome  care, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  dishonest  marauders,  was  absorbed 
into  the  new  State  of  Vermont,  and  lost  to  him  for  ever  by 
the  separation  of  America  from  Great  Britain.  With  that 
estate  vanished  all  Mrs.  Grant's  worldly  expectancies  and 
those  of  her  children,  yet  the  loss  very  slightly  affected 
her.  Sorrows  of  a  different  kind  were  destined  to  humble 
and  to  prove  her.  The  death  of  her  amiable  and  pro- 
mising eldest  son,  John-Lauchlan,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  was 
a  dreadful  blow.  Its  effect  was  somewhat  softened  to  both 
parents  by  the  birth  of  a  fourth  son  a  fortnight  afterwards, 
and  for  eighteen  months,  although  depressed  in  health 
and  spirits,  their  domestic  happiness  was  so  perfect  that 
Mrs.  Grant  subsequently  declared  that,  if  she  were  per- 
mitted to  select  six  months  out  of  her  whole  former  life  to 
live  over  again,  she  would  choose  the  last  six  of  that 
period.  •  It  came  to  a  fearful  close  :  Mr.  Grant  was 
attacked  by  inflammation  of  the  chest,  and  after  three 
days'  illness,  dangerous  symptoms  only  becoming  apparent 
to  his  medical  attendant  for  three  hours,  and  to  his  wife 
for  thirty  minutes,  the  agonised  woman  found  herself  a 
widow.  This  occurred  in  the  year  1801 ;  they  had  been 
twenty-two  years  married,  and  of  their  twelve  children 
eight  survived,  six  daughters  and  two  sons.  Under  a 
grievous  sense  of  her  bereavement  she  put  forth  all  her 
energy,  trusting  implicitly  that  the  children  of  a  righteous 
man  would  not  be  allowed  to  want  bread. 

Her  only  certain  income  was  the  small  pension  due  to 
her  as  the  widow  of  a  military  chaplain.  The  Duke  of 
Gordon  considerately  permitted  her  to  remain  the  tenant 

2  M  2 


532  LITEKABY  WOMEN   OP   ENGLAND. 

of  his  farm  for  two  years  after  her  husband's  death.  She 
was  also  aided  by  the  zealous  kindness  of  many  among  her 
family  connections  and  friends.  They  collected  the  ori- 
ginal verses  and  translations  which  she  had  previously 
written  and  given  away ;  sent  them  to  her  for  revision, 
and  published  them  under  the  patronage  of  the  Duchess 
of  Gordon,  3000  names  appearing  in  the  list  of  sub- 
scribers. 

In  June  1803,  she  reluctantly  quitted  Laggan  with  her 
children,  and  took  up  her  abode  at  Woodend  near  Stirling, 
having  garden-ground  attached  to  her  dwelling  and  a  few 
acres  of  pasture-land.  Her  father  died  in  the  same  year 
at  Glasgow,  and  her  mother,  who  had  a  small  pension  as 
an  officer's  widow,  came  to  spend  the  remainder  of  her 
days  under  the  roof  of  Mrs.  Grant. 

Twice  within  the  years  1803,  1804,  and  1805,  maternal 
duties  summoned  Mrs.  Grant  to  various  parts  of  England  ; 
the  last  of  these  visits  being  to  London  and  its  vicinity  for 
the  purpose  of  fitting  out  her  third  and  eldest  surviving 
son,  Duncan  James,  for  India ;  the  Eight  Honourable 
Charles  Grant  having  obtained  a  cadetship  for  his  young 
clansman.  To  make  a  comfortable  provision  for  all  her 
children  had  now  become  her  chief  desire,  and  to  fur- 
ther this  object  she  resolved,  at  the  suggestion  of  her 
true  friends  Mrs.  Smith,  Mrs,  Brown,  and  others,  with 
whom  she  had  kept  up  an  epistolary  correspondence  from 
her  girlhood,  to  publish  the  letters  which  they  had  pre- 
served; and  early  in  the  year  1806,  under  the  title  of 
*  Letters  from  the  Mountains,'  those  utterances  of  the  heart 
were  brought  before  the  public  by  Messrs.  Longman,  and 
met  with  extraordinary  success.  She  derived  from  this 
work,  not  only  large  pecuniary  profits,  but  also  many  in- 
valuable friendships. 


LITERARY  WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  533 

While  residing  at  Woodend  she  took  charge  of  several 
little  boys  as  boarders,  in  aid  of  her  scanty  means  of  liveli- 
hood, and  among  them  at  one  time  was  young  Morritt 
of  Rokeby.  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Steuart,  her  nearest 
neighbours,  appreciated  her  merit  and  showed  her  many 
attentions. 

In  April  1807,  her  daughter  Charlotte  died  at  the  age 

of  seventeen:  the   first   child   whom   she   lost  after  her 

• 

widowhood.  In  the  July  of  the  same  year,  her  daughter 
Catherine  died  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  her  age.  Both 
were  remarkable  for  beauty  and  intellect,  and  both  passed 
away  in  the  tranquillity  of  Christian  hope.  Grief  for  these 
beloved  children  was  mingled  with  fearful  apprehension 
for  the  six  survivors,  as  their  cases  made  her  fully  aware 
that  the  insidious  malady  of  their  father's  family,  con- 
sumption, was  inherited  by  his  children.  Nevertheless, 
with  unremitting  diligence,  she  laboured  for  their  temporal 
welfare. 

Having  kept  alive  her  American  remembrances  by 
comparing  them  with  those  of  her  mother,  and  having  en- 
larged and  corrected  these  conjoint  impressions  by  reading 
Colden's  ( History  of  the  Indians/  and  that  part  of  the 
'Travels  of  the  Duke  de  Eochefoucault-Liancourt  in 
America '  which  relates  his  tour  from  Upper  Canada  to 
New  York,  she  fortunately  met  in  London  with  several 
near  relations  of  Madame  Schuyler,  who  afforded  her  the 
aid  of  their  more  accurate  knowledge,  while  she  was 
engaged  in  finishing  the  manuscript  and  correcting  the 
proof-sheets  of  her  '  Memoirs  of  an  American  Lady,' 
which  appeared  in  ISO  8,  and  met  with  a  very  favourable 
reception. 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  although  the  observation  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  uttered  or  to  have  got  into  print, 


534  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

that  the  *  Letters  from  the  Mountains '  were  partly  in- 
debted for  their  immediate  success  to  their  connection  with 
the  birthplace  of  Macpherson  and  the  race  of  Ossian.  The 
'  Memoirs  of  an  American  Lady,'  also,  fell  into  and  har- 
monised with  the  recollections  of  many  survivors  of  the 
American  war,  and  thus  in  the  first  instance  stole  into 
public  favour.  Without  such  introductory  circumstances, 
both  works  might  have  failed  to  excite  attention,  but, 
having  gained  it,  their  intrinsic  merits  sufficed  to  extend 
and  heighten  their  celebrity.  They  passed  through  re- 
peated editions,  and  were  the  means  of  constantly  enlarging 
the  circle  of  her  personal  friends. 

In  1809,  the  Countess  of  Glasgow  having  requested  her 
to  take  charge  of  her  ladyship's  daughter,  who  was  then 
leaving  school,  Mrs.  Grant  was  induced  to  wish  for  other 
pupils  of  a  similar  kind,  whom  her  daughters  might 
instruct  under  her  own  supervision.  With  this  object  in 
view,  she  took  some  steps  towards  removing  to  London ; 
but  considerations  of  economy  causing  her  eventually  to 
decide  on  fixing  her  residence  in  Edinburgh,  she  took  a 
house  there  in  Heriot  Eow,  and  removed  her  family  thither 
in  March  1810. 

In  1811,  she  published  her  '  Essays  on  the  Supersti- 
tion of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  with  Translations  from 
the  Gaelic.' 

Towards  the  close  of  the  same  year,  her  mother,  Mrs. 
Macvicar,  died,  in  her  eighty-fourth  year. 

The  two  following  years,  unmarked  by  any  particular 
occurrence,  were  chiefly  spent  in  training  the  pupils  com- 
mitted to  her  care. 

In  1814,  she  published  a  poem  entitled  '  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Thirteen.' 

On   the   14th  of  August,  1814,   her  son,   Lieutenant 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  535 

Duncan-James  Grant,  died  at  Surat,  while  engaged  in 
military  duty,  and  expecting,  from  his  own  good  con- 
duct and  his  mother's  interest,  a  course  of  rapid  promo- 
tion. 

A  few  days  later,  in  the  same  month  and  year,  Mrs.  Grant 
lost  her  dutiful  and  amiable  daughter  Anne.  Informa- 
tion of  young  Duncan's  death  had  not  reached  his  home 
when  that  of  his  beloved  sister  occurred,  and  a  glimpse 
of  second-sight  seems  to  have  dawned  on  her  last  hours. 
In  a  letter  dated  March  12th,  1815,  to  Mrs.  Hook,  wife 
of  the  Dean  of  Winchester,  and  compiler  of  the  '  Sacred 
Hours,'  Mrs.  Grant,  referring  to  the  recent  deaths  of  a  son 
and  daughter,  adds  :— "  I  must  tell  you  that  Anne,  for  a 
few  days  before  her  death,  when  waking  confused  from 
unquiet  sleep,  exclaimed  three  or  four  times,  '  Duncan  is 
in  Heaven  ! '  Strange,  this  gave  us  no  fear  or  alarm  at 
the  time ;  now  it  is  balm  to  my  sad  recollections :  he  died 
about  ten  days  before  her." 

In  the  spring  of  1815,  Mrs.  Grant,  finding  that  her 
house  in  Heriot  Row  had  become  too  small  for  her  pupils, 
removed  to  a  larger  one  in  Prince's  Street.  Conscious  of 
the  fragile  tenure  by  which  she  held  her  dearest  earthly 
blessings,  anxiety  constituted  her  principal  trial  during  the 
next  five  years,  which  were  brightened  by  many  intervals 
of  enjoyment. 

In  September  1820,  she  accidentally  slipped  down  some 
stone  steps,  and  received  an  injury  which  lamed  her  for 
life,  but  in  no  degree  abated  the  elasticity  of  her  spirits  or 
the  goodness  of  her  general  health. 

In  1821  the  Highland  Society  of  London  awarded  her 
their  gold  medal  for  the  best  'Essay  on  the  Past  and 
Present  State  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.'  On  the 
1st  of  July  in  the  same  year,  Mrs.  Grant's  sorrows  were 


536  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

renewed  and  increased  by  the  death  of  her  youngest 
daughter,  Moore,  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  her  age. 

On  the  16th  of  June,  1823,  her  daughter  Isabella  died. 

In  1826  Mrs.  Grant  removed  her  residence  to  Brae- 
house,  a  detached  dwelling  surrounded  by  a  garden,  which 
her  crippled  state  rendered  doubly  delightful  to  her. 

On  the  16th  of  November,  1827,  Mary,  her  eldest  and 
last  surviving  daughter,  died. 

No  sooner  had  she  acquired  independence  than  those 
for  whose  sake  she  had  indefatigably  laboured  were  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  secular  advantages.  Of  all  her  twelve 
children,  only  one  remained,  the  youngest  son,  who,  like 
the  rest,  was  pious,  sensible,  and  affectionate.  Her  pupils, 
who  loved  her  so  well  that  they  seldom  left  her  home 
until  called  upon  to  establish  households  of  their  own, 
gathered  often  around  her  desolate  hearth,  and  habitually 
showed  her  the  most  dutiful  attentions. 

Her  books,  her  school,  legacies  from  deceased  friends, 
and  at  last  a  literary  pension,  placed  her  late  in  life  in 
easy  circumstances,  which  enabled  her  to  gratify  her 
generous  propensities  by  assisting  indigent  merit. 

To  please  those  who  cared  for  her  happiness,  she  con- 
tinued to  make  occasional  excursions  into  the  country,  and 
to  visit  at  the  houses  of  old  friends.  She  maintained  her 
habits  of  early  rising,  kept  her  mind  open,  as  of  yore,  to 
every  agreeable  emotion  from  the  aspects  of  nature  and 
the  intercourse  of  life,  took  a  lively  interest  in  all  the 
stirring  incidents  of  the  times,  cherished  her  political  pre- 
judices for  the  Tories  by  friendly  discussions  with  the 
Whigs,  largely  contributed  to  the  intellectual  enjoyment 
of  her  social  circle,  and  proved  the  steadfast  truth  of  her 
own  early  assertion,  that  she  never  forgot  any  one  she  ever 
cared  for. 


LITERARY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  537 

In  April  1832,  on  her  son's  marriage,  she  left  Brae- 
house  to  reside  with  him. 

Early  in  the  year  1837,  her  daughter-in-law  died,  and 
she  removed  to  Manor  Place.  She  continued  to  associate 
and  to  correspond  with  her  friends  until  a  few  weeks  before 
her  death,  which  occurred  on  the  7th  of  November,  1838, 
in  the  eighty-fourth  year  of  her  age.  She  was  buried  near 
the  graves  of  four  of  her  daughters  in  the  New  Cemetery 
of  St.  Cuthbert's  in  the  city  of  Edinburgh. 

In  the  year  1844  her  *  Autobiography/  and  a  Series  of 
*  Familiar  Letters '  from  1803  to  1838,  were  published, 
edited  by  her  son  John-Peter  Grant,  Writer  to  the 
Signet. 

Having  lived  for  eight-and-twenty  years  among  the 
most  eminent  literary  people  of  the  time,  and  read  all  the 
fashionable  books,  Mrs.  Grant  has  thrown  into  these  letters 
anecdotes,  sketches  of  character,  and  critical  remarks, 
whicli  add  to  the  interest  they  possess  as  records  of  family 
biography.  Between  her  fragmentary  <  Autobiography ' 
and  the  statements  made  in  her  *  Letters '  posthumously 
published,  compared  with  her  '  Letters  from  the  Moun- 
tains/ and  her  '  Memoirs  of  an  American  Lady/  many 
flagrant  discrepancies  occur.  Guided  by  the  rule  of  always 
adopting  contemporaneous  documents  in  preference  to  long 
unwritten  reminiscences,  while  accepting  also  such  subse- 
quent documents  as  cast  a  broader  light  upon  preceding 
ones,  this  biographical  notice  has  been  founded  upon  the 
best  evidence  afforded  by  her  writings. 

Her  memory  was  wonderfully  good,  but  she  trusted  it 
too  implicitly  upon  other  points  as  well  as  upon  those  of 
her  family  and  personal  history.  The  *  Letters  from  the 
Mountains/  and  the  '  Memoirs  of  an  American  Lady/  give 
totally  different  accounts  of  Aunt  Schuyler's  birth  and 


538  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

parentage.  Several  passages  in  the  '  Memoirs  '  are  like- 
wise opposed  to  each  other.  At  page  141  of  the  '  Memoirs ' 
Mrs.  Grant  states  that  the  old  Colonel  did  not  live  to 
witness  his  eldest  son's  marriage  with  Catalina,  whicli 
took  place  in  the  year  1719.  At  page  163  of  the  same 
volume,  she  states  that  this  young  pair  chiefly  resided 
with  the  old  Colonel  for  two  years  before  his  death,  which 
took  place  in  1721 !  These  inconsistencies,  so  far  as  they 
relate  to  the  Schuylers,  may  possibly  have  been  rectified 
in  after  editions,  but  strange  want  of  vigilance  is  mani- 
fested by  the  omission  of  at  least  a  note  to  show  the 
reader  that  the  second  statement  was  to  be  considered  as 
a  correction  of  the  first. 

There  was  a  want  of  systematic  accuracy  in  all  her  com- 
positions. She  had  little  constructive  power,  and  great 
ability  in  word-painting  from  natural  objects.  Her  style 
fails  in  precision,  though  it  is  seldom  deficient  in  per- 
spicuity. Her  syntax  is  often  faulty;  her  orthography 
was  notoriously  incorrect,  and  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the 
printers.  She  uses  many  peculiarities  of  diction,  often  sub- 
stituting the  preposition  "  of "  for  the  preposition  "  for," 
and  making  the  adverb  "whenever"  equivalent  to  "as 
soon  as  : "  for  instance,  "  I  am  the  better  of  being  tenderly 
cared  for,  and  of  three  months  in  the  country  " — "  Whenever 
she  heard  that  I  was  here,  she  came."  Like  most  Scotch 
writers,  she  sometimes  misplaced  the  verbs  "will"  and 
"shall." 

Every  moral  and  social  truth  which  she  knew,  and  her 
memory  was  full  of  such,  had  been  either  directly  brought 
to  her  by  a  fact,  impressed  by  a  fact,  or  conjoined  with 
one  by  way  of  illustration  ;  and  all  these  facts  were  either 
incidents  of  her  personal  history,  or  occurrences  in  the 
lives  of  people  upon  whose  traces  she  had  trodden.  This 


LITEUAUY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAM ».  .',:','.» 

nt'  tilings  imparts  to  her  writings  an  air  of 
!  ivslmess  and  originality,  which,  atoning  for  all  faults  of 
construction  and  of  style,  renders  their  perusal  always 
pleasing.  It  had  the  same  effect  in  society,  where  the 
>;iiracity  of  her  intellect,  the  affectionate  warmth  of  her 
In -art,  her  natural  ease  and  fluency  of  speech,  and  the 
n -fined  simplicity  of  her'manners,  always  rendered  her  an 
object  of  interest,  and  often  of  admiration. 

She  personally  exemplified  the  Highland  attributes 
which  she  admired :  "  virtuous  and  dignified  poverty, 
elegance  of  sentiment  that  lives  in  the  heart  and  conduct, 
and  subsists  independent  of  local  and  transitory  modes."* 

The  glazing  of  stoneware  is  said  to  differ  from  that  of 
earthenware  in  being  no  superficial  addition,  but  the 
result  of  the  actual  fusion  of  the  substance.  This  affords 
an  apt  resemblance  of  such  persons  whose  outward  polish, 
like  that  of  Mrs.  Grant,  forms  an  integral  part  of  them- 
selves. 

Her  mind  expanded  early  to  its  full  stretch.  It  never 
shrunk ;  it  never  relaxed  in  its  tension,  it  never  faded ; 
but  after  youth  had  passed,  it  evinced  no  perceptible 
growth.  Perhaps,  imitative  talent  gave,  in  the  first 
instance,  the  semblance  of  precocious  ripeness,  and  in  the 
course  of  years  original  ability  superseded  that  semblance 
with  reality ;  be  that  as  it  may,  in  worldly  wisdom,  in 
literature,  and  in  piety,  her  early  attainments  were  ad- 
mirable, and  they  were  in  later  life  well  sustained,  if  not 
augmented.  Even  religious  progress  showed  itself  chiefly 
in  that  confirmed  habit  of  submission  to  the  will  of  a 
Heavenly  Father,  which  enabled  her  patiently  to  resign, 
one  after  another,  her  idolised  children  to  Him.  Nor 
should  that  merciful  Providence  pass  unremarked,  which, 

*  'Letter*  from  the  Mountains,'  ed.  1806,  vol.  i.  p.  251. 


540  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

in  pity  to  her  tender  heart,  left  her  to  the  last  one  child 
to  be  her  daily  comfort,  and  to  close  her  eyes. 

Her  reading  seems  to  have  been  extensive,  but  desultory. 
Perhaps  hundreds  of  the  women  of  her  day  read  as  much, 
and  probably  not  a  tithe  of  them  remembered  the  subject 
matter  so  tenaciously  as  she  did,  or  wrought  it  into  the 
mind  so  thoroughly.  For  doing  this  she  had  singular 
advantages  in  her  personal  intercourse  with  the  Edin- 
burgh and  Quarterly  Keviewers,  and  in  her  constant  habit 
of  retailing  her  own  opinions  and  their  judgments  in  fre- 
quent conversations  with  other  associates,  and  in  numerous 
letters  to  her  friends ;  so  that  the  same  subject,  being  set 
before  her  mind  in  several  different  lights  of  investigation 
in  receiving,  and  of  explanation  in  imparting  it,  became 
perfectly  familiar,  and  took  its  durable  place  in  her  reten- 
tive memory. 

With  admirable  impartiality  and  candour,  but  with  too 
much  severity,  Mrs.  Grant  asserts*  that  she  had  "  no  foun- 
tain of  inspiration,  but  a  cistern  of  acquisitions." 

She  was  undoubtedly  gifted  with  that  faculty  of  ori- 
ginating ideas  which  constitutes  genius ;  she  versified  har- 
moniously, and  rhymed  with  facility.  She  must,  there- 
fore, be  enrolled  among  the  British  poetesses,  and  her  own 
frank  avowal  of  her  sensations  and  feelings  will  uninten- 
tionally assist  in  fixing  the  rank  she  ought  to  occupy. 

In  a  letter  to  Miss  Catherine-Maria  Fanshawe,  dated 
February  18,  1809,  Mrs.  Grant  says  :  "  When  I  first  went 
to  the  Highlands,  I  thought  it  pretty  and  poetical  to  admire 
the  general  face  of  the  country,  and  spurred  myself  up  to 
something  like  admiration,  but  it  wras,  without  a  pun,  up- 
hill work.  Particular  spots  charmed  me,  but  the  general 
aspect  of  the  country  made  me  always  think  myself  in  a 
*  'Letters  from  the  Mountains,'  vol.  ii.  p.  191,  ed.  1. 


LITKIIAHY    WOMEN    OF    KNGLAND.  541 

defile  guarded  by  savage  and  gloomy  giants  with  their 
heads  in  the  clouds  and  their  feet  washed  by  cataracts  ;  in 
short,  it  appeared  to  me  as  awful  as  it  would  be  to  live  night 
and  day  in  that  mighty  Minster  that  so  filled  my  eyes  and 
my  imagination  when  lately  at  York.  Time,  however,  went 
on,  and  I  began  to  grow  a  little  savage  myself:  'not  a 
mountain  reared  its  head  unsung ; '  and,  when  I  grew  ac- 
quainted with  the  language  and  the  poetry  of  the  country, 
I  found  a  thousand  interesting  localities  combined  with 
those  scenes  where  the  lovely  and  the  brave  of  other  days 
had  still  a  local  habitation  and  a  name :  cherished  tradi- 
tions, and  the  poetry  of  nature  and  the  heart  shed  light 
over  scenes  the  most  gloomy,  and  peopled  solitude  with 
images  the  most  attractive  and  awakening.  When,  after 
a  long  residence  in  this  land  of  enthusiasm,  I  left  the  abode 
of  ghosts,  and  warrior-hunters,  and  heroines,  to  come  down 
to  common  life  in  a  flat  country,  you  cannot  imagine  how 
bleak  and  unsheltered,  how  tame  and  uninteresting,  it 
appeared." 

Again,  writing  to  the  same  friend,  on  the  17th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1810,  Mrs.  Grant  says,  in  reference  to  a  tour 
which  she  had  lately  made  with  some  English  visitors : — 
"I  have  seen  the  Trosachs  before,  and  thought  them  all 
that  Walter  Scott  describes ;  yet  till  now  they  produced 
less  of  the  local  interest  which  pervades  all  Highland 
scenery  than  any  other  district  I  know.  And  why  ?  Be- 
cause they  were  uncelebrated  and  unsung ;  and  almost 
every  mountain  glen  and  every  moor  that  I  ever  saw  or 
heard  of  besides  is  connected  with  some  strain  of  native 
poetry,  some  note  of  wild  music,  or  some  antique  legend, 
that  give  a  local  habitation  and  a  name  to  those  forms 
which  float  on  the  memory,  or  fleet  through  the  imagina- 
tion. When  I  first  went  to  the  Highlands,  and,  from  not 


542  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

knowing  the  language  or  the  people,  could  not  taste  the 
charms  of  their  poetry,  the  sentiments  of  their  music,  or 
the  delights  of  manners  more  courteous,  and  conversation 
more  intelligent,  than  are  anywhere  else  to  be  met  with . 
among  rustics;*  when  first,  I  say,  I  wandered  untaught 
and  forlorn  amid  the  desolation  of  brown  heaths  and  dusky 
mountains,  I  was  at  times  charmed  with  particular  scenes, 
but  the  general  effect  was  as  much  lost  on  me  as  on  these 
tourists :  I  was  like  the  ignorant  maid  who  tried  her 
master's  violin  all  over,  and  could  never  find  where  the 
tune  lay." 

Here  is  confession,  unwittingly  made,  that  the  true  spirit 
of  sublime  poetry  never  inhabited  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Grant, 
The  recorded  experience  of  genius  is  the  very  obverse  of 
hers.  The  serene  aspect  of  alpine  heights  contemplated 
for  the  first  time,  the  voiceless  monition  of  unknown 
mountain  solitudes,  the  presence  of  nature  in  stupendous 
and  gigantic  majesty,  evoke  no  sensation  of  repulsion  or 
strangeness,  but  rather  the  welcome  realisation  of  vaguely 
ideal  forms  of  grandeur :  affording  objects  of  gratification 
to  ft  congenial  faculty,  and  educing  a  flow  of  enthusiastic 
affection,  which  tacitly  owns  the  heart  to  have  met  at  last 
with  scenes  which  must  blend  with  its  noblest  and  dearest 
remembrances  for  ever.  Historic,  traditional,  and  poetical 
associations  can  light  up  their  localities  with  brightness  all 
their  own.  Heroes  and  heroines  appear  to  advantage  with 
a  background  of  solemn  or  beautiful  scenery,  and  the 
secondary  charm  of  human  interest  is  added  by  fictitious 
narrative  to  many  an  alpine  spot.  That  charm,  however, 
can  invest  any  landscape,  whether  mountainous  or  marine, 
of  the  woodland  or  the  plain :  Cowper  has  diffused  it  over 

*  Mrs.  Grant  was  unacquainted  with  the  Welsh,  whose  music  and  man- 
ners deserve  at  least  equal  praise  with  those  of  the  Highland  peasantry. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         5-13 

tin4  flat  arable  and  pasture  lands  of  Buckinghamshire  ;  the 
Brontes  have  cast  its  lustre  with  fascinating  brilliancy 
across  the  bleak  and  unpicturesque  moors  of  Haworth. 

Genuine  appreciation  of  natural  scenery  has  its  proper 
gradations  of  admiration  and  love  for  every  landscape  ;  but 
it  is  in  all  its  varied  characters  essentially  different  and 
distinct  from  mere  adventitious  associations.  Mrs.  Grant 
became  reconciled  to  mountain  heights,  glens,  and  cata- 
racts, for  the  sake  of  those  who  had  trodden  and  sung 
there ;  or  under  the  spell  of  romantic  fiction.  She  learned 
to  like  the  severe  and  stately  glory  of  desert  ranges ;  but 
it  was  after  the  same  manner  that  some  persons  take 
pleasure  in  sea-views,  on  account  of  the  graceful  ships  and 
pretty  boats  which  diversify  the  monotonous  vastness  of 
the  ocean. 

ON  A  SPRIG  OF  HEATH. 

"  Flower  of  the  waste  !  the  heath -fowl  shuns 

For  thee  the  brake  and  tangled  wood  ; 
To  thy  protecting  shade  she  runs, 

Thy  tender  buds  supply  her  food ; 
Her  young  forsake  her  downy  plumes 
To  rest  upon  thy  opening  blooms. 

Flower  of  the  desert  though  thou  art, 

The  deer  that  range  the  mountain  free, 
The  graceful  doe,  the  stately  hart, 

Their  food  and  shelter  seek  from  thee ; 
The  bee  thy  earliest  blossom  greets, 
And  drains  from  thee  her  choicest  sweets. 

Gem  of  the  heath  !  whose  modest  bloom 

Sheds  beauty  o'er  the  lonely  moor ; 
Though  thou  dispense  no  rich  perfume, 

Nor  yet  with  splendid  tints  allure, 
Both  valour's  crest  and  beauty's  bower 
Oft  hast  thou  decked,  a  favourite  flower. 

Flower  of  the  wild !  whose  purple  glow 

Adorns  the  dusky  mountain's  si<lr  ; 
Not  the  gay  hues  of  Iris'  bow, 

Nor  garden's  artful  varied  pride, 
With  all  its  wealth  of  sweets,  could  cheer 
Like  thee,  the  hardv  mountaineer. 


544  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Flower  of  his  heart !  thy  fragrance  mild 
Of  peace  and  freedom  seems  to  breathe  ; 

To  pluck  thy  blossom  in  the  wild, 
And  deck  his  bonnet  with  the  wreath, 

Where  dwelt  of  old  his  rustic  sires, 

Is  all  his  simple  wish  desires. 

Flower  of  his  dear-loved  native  land, 
Alas !  when  distant  far  more  dear ! 

When  he,  from  some  cold  foreign  strand, 
Looks  homeward  through  the  blinding  tear, 

How  must  his  aching  heart  deplore, 

The  home  and  thee  lie  sees  no  more !  " 


LITK1JM!V    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  .")!."> 


CHAPTER    XX. 

THE  POETESSES. 

A.D.  1838-1850. 

Lady  Flora-Elizabeth  Hastings  —  Mary- Anne  Browne. 


"  Oh !  who  shall  lightly  say  that  fame 
Is  nothing  but  an  empty  name  ? 

When  records  of  the  mighty  dead 
To  earth-worn  pilgrim's  wistful  eye 

The  brightest  rays  of  cheering  shed 
That  point  to  immortality !  "  * 


LADY  FLORA-ELIZABETH  HASTINGS. 

LADY  Flora-Elizabeth  Hastings  was  born  on  the  llth  of 
February,  1806.  Her  parents  were  Francis,  second  Earl 
of  Moira,  created  Marquis  of  Hastings  December  7th, 
1816,  and  Flora-Mure  Campbell,  Countess  of  Loudon  in 
her  own  right.  Lady  Flora  was  from  childhood  thought- 
ful, studious,  and  conscientious,  and  in  maturer  age  piety 
and  poetry  were  her  chief  sources  of  happiness. 

She  became  a  lady  of  the  bedchamber  to  H.  R.  H.  the 
Duchess  of  Kent,  who  appreciated  her  high-toned  and 
amiable  character.  Being  afflicted  with  a  chronic  enlarge- 
ment of  the  liver,  rumours  were  circulated  injurious  to  her 
reputation,  which,  although  disbelieved  and  reprobated  by 
the  Royal  Duchess,  who  judged  of  pure  and  noble  hearts 
by  her  own,  tended  by  their  effect  on  Lady  Flora's  sen- 

*  'Metrical  Legends,'  by  Juuuim  Buillie. 

2   N 


546  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

sitive  feelings  to  aggravate  her  malady  and  hasten  her 
death.  She  expired  at  Buckingham  Palace  on  the  5th  of 
July,  1839. 

Her  poems,  chiefly  evoked  by  the  incidents  of  her  pre- 
vious history,  were  posthumously  published.  They  want 
the  light  and  fire  of  original  genius,  and  are  feeble  imita- 
tions of  various  pieces  by  Mrs.  Hemans.  Among  these 
plaintive  strains,  the  following  are  highly  polished  and 
pleasing: — 

ITALY. 

"  Oh,  name  it  not !  there  is  a  spell 

Around  its  memory  clinging, 

To  which  I  would  not  bid  farewell 

For  all  the  future's  bringing. 

The  skies  of  radiant  Italy, 

Oh,  they  are  deeply  blue  1 
And  nothing  save  their  kindred  waves 

Can  match  their  sapphire  hue. 
No  little  clouds  e'er  flit  across 

To  dim  their  heavenly  light ; 
Would  that  my  soul  were  pure  as  they, 

As  spotless  and  as  bright ! 

The  gales  of  balmy  Italy, 

Oh !  as  they  fleet  along, 
They  bear  upon  their  downy  wings 

The  treasured  wealth  of  song ; 
They  linger  through  the  blooming  scenes 

Where  once  my  footsteps  roved, 
And  they  are  free,  though  I  am  not, 

To  kiss  the  flowers  I  loved. 

The  songs  of  tuneful  Italy, 

They  wake  within  my  heart 
Those  visions  of  the  olden  time 

Which  will  not  thence  depart ; 
And  freedom,  love,  and  honour  bright, 

Rise  from  the  dust  again. 
Would  that  my  feeble  lyre  could  wake 

The  spirit-stirring  strain ! 

The  flowers  of  sunny  Italy, 

Oh,  blissful  is  their  doom  ! 
A  brief,  bright  space  to  bloom— then  sink 

Untrodden  to  the  tomb, 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OP  ENGLAND.        547 

Still  breathing  fragrance  as  they  droop 

Beneath  the  golden  ray. 
Oh  !  thus  wer't  mine  to  sigh  my  soul 

In  ecstasy  away ! 

The  tombs  of  holy  Italy,— 

The  earth  where  heroes  trod, 
Where  sainted  martyrs  glorified 

In  death  the  Incarnate  God  ! 
Where  all  is  bright,  and  pure,  and  calm, 

On  earth,  in  air,  and  sea  ; 
Oh,  Italy,  amongst  thy  tombs, 

Hast  thou  not  one  for  me  ?  " 


THE  SWAN  SONG. 

"  Grieve  not  that  I  die  young.    Is  it  not  well 

To  pass  away  ere  life  hath  lost  its  brightness  ? 
Bind  me  no  longer,  sisters,  with  the  spell 
Of  love  and  your  kind  words.    List  ye  to  me : 
Here  I  am  bless'd,  but  I  would  be  more  free, 
I  would  go  forth  in  all  my  spirit's  lightness. 

Let  me  depart. 

Ah  !  who  would  linger  till  bright  eyes  grow  dim, 
Kind  voices  mute,  and  faithful  bosoms  cold  ? 

Till  carking  care,  and  coil,  and  anguish  grim, 
Cast  their  dark  shadows  o'er  this  fairy  world? 
Till  fancy's  many-coloured  wings  are  furled, 

And  all,  save  the  proud  spirit,  waxeth  old  ? 

I  would  depart. 

Thus  would  I  pass  away— yielding  my  soul 
A  joyous  thank-offering  to  Him  who  gave 

That  soul  to  be,  those  starry  orbs  to  roll ; 
Thus,  thus,  exultingly  would  I  depart, 
Song  on  my  lips,  ecstacy  in  my  heart ; 

Sisters,  sweet  sisters,  bear  me  to  my  grave  ! 

Let  me  depart ! ' 


MARY- ANNE  BROWNE. 

Maidenhead  in  Berkshire  was  the  birthplace  of  Mary- 
Anne  Browne,  and  she  first  saw  the  light  in  1812. 

Her  precocious  talents  caused  injudicious  and  ambitious 
friends  to  force  her  into  premature  notice,  and  a  collection 
of  her  verses  came  before  the  public  when  she  was  only 

2  N  2 


548  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

fifteen  years  of  age.  Happily,  the  indigenous  plant  had 
sufficient  strength  to  endure  this  stove-culture  without 
utter  exhaustion,  and  to  recover  itself  afterwards  in  fresh 
air  and  a  congenial  soil. 

In  the  year  1840  her  family  removed  to  Liverpool.  In 
1842  she  married  James  Gray,  a  Scotchman,  and  a  nephew 
of  James  Hogg  the  Ettrick  Shepherd.  She  died  at  Cork 
in  1844. 

Her  mature  character  was  remarkable  for  piety  and 
charity,  shown  in  deeds  of  unostentatious  usefulness  to  all 
around  her. 

She  wrote  'Mont  Blanc;  'Ada/  < Kepentance,'  'The 
Coronal,'  'The  Birthday  Gift/  'Ignatia/  'Sacred  Poetry/ 
and  many  fugitive  pieces  in  periodicals.  They  evince  a 
mind  which  has  derived  its  nutriment  chiefly  from  se- 
condary sources.  Her  style  is  always  imitative,  yet  the 
pathos  which  usually  belongs  to  her  themes,  and  her  mode 
of  treating  them,  is  attractive  and  endearing. 

WOMAN'S  LOVE. 

"  When  Man  is  waxing  frail, 

And  his  hand  is  thin  and  weak, 
And  his  lips  are  parched  and  pale, 

And  wan  and  white  his  cheek, 
Oh !  then  doth  woman  prove 
Her  constancy  and  love ! 

She  sitteth  by  his  chair, 

And  holds  his  feeble  hand  ; 
She  watcheth  ever  there, 

His  wants  to  understand ; 
His  yet  unspoken  will 
She  hasteneth  to  fulfil. 

She  leads  him,  when  the  noon 

Is  bright  o'er  dale  and  hill, 
And  all  things,  save  the  tune 

Of  the  honey-bees,  are  still, 
Into  the  garden  bowers, 
To  sit  'midst  herbs  and  flowers. 


LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND.         .'.Ill 

And  when  he  goes  not  there, 

To  feast  on  breath  and  bloom, 
She  brings  the  posy  rare 

Into  his  darkened  room ; 
And  'neath  his  weary  head 
The  pillow  smooth  doth  spread. 

Until  the  hour  when  death 

His  lamp  of  life  doth  dim, 
She  never  wearieth, 

She  never  leaveth  him ; 
Still  near  him  night  and  day 
She  meets  his  eye  alway. 

And  when  his  trial's  o'er, 

And  the  turf  is  on  his  breast, 
Deep  in  her  bosom's  core 

Lie  sorrows  unexpressed. 
Her  tears,  her  sighs  are  weak, 
Her  settled  grief  to  speak. 

And  though  there  may  arise 

Balm  for  her  spirit's  pain, 
And  though  her  quiet  eyes 

May  sometimes  smile  again ; 
Still,  still,  she  must  regret, 
She  never  can  forget ! " 


THE  GIFTED. 

"  Oh  !  woe  for  those  whose  dearest  themes 

Must  rest  within  the  bosom's  fold ! 
Oh !  woe  for  those  who  live  on  dreams, 

Unheeded  by  the  coarse  and  cold  : 
They  have  a  hidden  life,  akin 

To  nothing  in  this  earthly  sphere  ; 
They  have  a  glorious  world  within, 

Where  nothing  mortal  may  appear ; 
A  world  of  song,  and  flower,  and  gem, 
Yet  woe  for  them !  oh,  woe  for  them  ! 

Such  his  perplexing  grief  who  seeks 

A  refuge  upon  stranger  shores  ; 
In  vain  to  foreign  ears  he  speaks, 

In  vain  their  sympathy  implores. 
The  same  sad  fate  a  bark  might  prove, 

Laden  with  gold  or  princely  store, 
Without  a  guiiling  star  above, 

With  an  unmeasured  deep  before. 
The  world  doth  scorn  them,  gibe,  condemn, 
Woe  for  the  gifted,  woe  for  them  ! " 


550  LITEKAKY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

Unlike  the  wretched  prognosticates  who  wore  himself  out 
with  denouncing  "  Woe  to  Jerusalem !"  and  concluded  by  a 
death-cry  of  "  Woe  to  myself !"  poor  Mary- Anne  Browne 
escaped  scatheless,  in  safe  mediocrity  and  a  quiet  home, 
from  her  sentimental  declaration.  It  is  a  sort  of  para- 
phrase of  some  lines  by  Mrs.  Hemans. 

No  British  poetess  having  died  between  the  years  1844 
and  1850,  the  name  of  Mary- Anne  Browne  concludes  the 
series  which  the  writer  of  these  pages  has  undertaken  to 
illustrate.  A  few  words  of  retrospection  will  therefore 
close  her  self-allotted  and  pleasing  task. 

M.  le  Baron  de  Barante,  in  his  admirable  essay  *  De  la 
Litterature  Franchise  pendant  le  Dix-huitieme  Siecle,' 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Poetry  played  during 
that  period  quite  a  different  part  to  what  it  did  among 
the  ancients ;  that  it  formed  an  essential  portion  of  their 
manners,  and  almost  of  their  language ;  that  it  expressed 
habitual  sentiments,  and  employed  itself  with  every- 
day occurrences,  representing  facts  according  to  the 
popular  belief,  and  places  that  lay  before  the  people's 
eyes;  that  it  adored  the  gods  who  were  celebrated  in 
public  worship ;  and,  in  a  word,  that  it  was  full  of  reality, 
and  not  a  mere  conventional  language. 

In  terms  as  appropriate  to  the  English  writers  of  his 
time  as  to  the  French  whom  he  addresses,  M.  de  Barante 
adds,  that  with  us  neither  Poetry,  nor  indeed  general  lite- 
rature, is  of  native  growth.  If  that  literature  had  not  re- 
ceived foreign  and  ancient  importations,  if  it  had  remained 
the  daughter  of  our  old  fables,  of  our  romances  of  chivalry, 
of  our  old  mysteries,  and  of  our  Gothic  superstitions,  he  tells 
us,  it  might  perhaps  have  vegetated  through  a  prolonged 
infancy,  but  it  would  have  preserved  a  true  and  national 


•*•      UTF.KAKY    WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND.  551 

character,  an  intimate  connection  with  our  manners,  our 
ivligion,  and  our  annals,  which  must  have  secured  for  it  a 
direct  and  more  complete  effect  Such,  however,  has  not 
been  the  case.  Our  writers,  at  the  revival  of  letters,  in- 
stead of  perfecting  their  native  literature,  deemed  them- 
selves the  heirs  of  Greece  and  Borne,  adopted  in  literature 
strange  gods  and  foreign  manners,  repudiating  all  national 
remembrances  to  transport  themselves  into  those  of  anti- 
quity. People  began  to  copy  and  dress  up  antique  models, 
repelling  the  impressions  and  inspirations  of  habitual  life. 
Verse,  which  in  days  of  yore  constituted  the  charm  of 
palaces  and  feudal  castles,  which  our  unlettered  kings  and 
cavaliers  artlessly  traced  with  the  sword's  point  to  express 
their  loves  and  woes,  became  the  exclusive  patrimony  of 
the  learned,  who  were  well  acquainted  with  Horace  and 
Pindar,  but  forgot  nature.  This  pedantic  and  artificial 
imitation  of  the  ancients  gradually  assumed  a  mixed  cha- 
racter. Keal  circumstances  modified  borrowed  passages, 
and  there  resulted  from  this  twofold  activity  a  middle 
path  in  which  authors  have  trodden  ever  since;  but 
although  long  habit  and  education  have  almost  identified 
us  with  this  system,  its  poetry  has  ever  retained  a  certain 
harsh  alienation  from  our  ordinary  usages,  and  only  by  a 
sort  of  tacit  convention  are  we  enabled  to  transport  our- 
selves into  its  domains. 

It  is  this,  the  same  eloquent  writer  has  remarked,  which 
leaves  us  so  far  behind  the  ancients,  and  more  than  all  be- 
hind the  Greeks,  who  live  always  in  the  midst  of  reality, 
who  paint  what  they  feel,  describe  what  they  see,  and 
never  find  themselves  compelled  to  exaggerate  their  sense 
of  things,  or  to  inflate  their  language.* 

*  See  the  passage  which  begins  : — "  Sans  parler  ties  obstacles  que  peut 
pre'senter  la  langue,  sous  It-  rupport  de  la  syutaxr  L-t  «k-  riuiriiiouic,  il  faut 
observer,"  &c. 


552  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.     * 

Thus  far  M.  de  Barante  has  been  followed.  As  re- 
gards English  poetry,  it  passed  under  the  additional 
influences  of  the  Italian,  and  of  the  French  modification 
of  the  ancient  classic  style,  while  still  the  natural  and 
national  kind  lingered  on  obscure,  and  scarcely  recognised 
excepting  in  the  ballads  of  the  uneducated. 

On  a  survey  of  the  whole  subject,  it  is  apparent  that  in 
literature,  as  in  the  fine  manual  arts,  excellence  can  never 
be  ensured  by  such  imitation  as  slavishly  copies  line  for 
line,  and  tint  for  tint,  and  affects  to  assume  the  general  tone 
or  minor  peculiarities  of  others.  On  the  contrary,  it  should 
be  sought  in  following,  attentively  yet  freely,  nature's  true 
principle  of  development,  the  acquisition  of  means,  divers 
and  severally  appropriate,  in  the  use  of  which  original 
genius,  according  to  its  kind  and  degree,  may  indepen- 
dently work  out  its  conceptions  after  the  example  of  those 
poets  who,  writing  not  for  their  generation  only  but  for 
human  nature  in  all  times,  produced  masterpieces  trans- 
latable into  all  languages,  and  welcome  to  all  hearts.  The 
truth  of  nature,  of  present  circumstances,  of  daily  life,  of 
Divine  worship,  and  of  real  feeling,  experimental  and  per- 
sonal, not  imitated  truth,  is  essential  to  every  form  of  real 
poetry,  and  can  never  fail  to  give  vitality  to  words,  to  en- 
kindle sympathy,  and  touch  the  motive  springs  of  conduct. 

Among  the  English  Poetesses  noticed  in  preceding 
chapters,  down  to  the  year  1815,  Lady  Pembroke  stands 
alone  in  Arcadian  elegy,  Lady  Winchelsea  excels  in  rural 
description,  Miss  Seward  remains  unsurpassed  in  the 
poetical  novel,  and  Mrs.  Tighe  in  epic  allegory  ;  Charlotte 
Smith  claims  the  palm  for  her  sonnets,  Mrs.  Barbauld  for 
her  hymns,  and  Hannah  More  wears,  without  a  visible 
rival,  the  double  wreath  of  didactic  and  dramatic  verse. 

These  pre-eminent  women,  as  well  as  their  less  distin- 


LITERARY   WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND.  553 

guished  sisters  of  the  lyre,  intermingled  natural  feeling  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree  with  the  artificial  systems  of  their 
times,  according  to  the  precedents  afforded  by  the  par- 
ticular authors  whose  writings  they  severally  chose  as 
models  for  imitation  or  standards  of  taste.  Cowper  and 
Bowles,  Crabbe  and  Joanna  Baillie,  Coleridge  and  Words- 
worth, having  broken  away  from  the  thraldom  of  system, 
and  publicly  proclaimed  the  liberty  of  poetic  utterance, 
heralded  a  new  era  in  English  literature. 

The  different  lengths  of  the  lives  of  the  Poetesses,  and 
the  extreme  longevity  of  a  few,  tend,  in  a  chronological 
survey,  to  produce  a  somewhat  bewildering,  although  a  just 
effect,  answering  to  real  life,  where  whole  generations  do 
not  die  off  regularly  in  the  order  of  birth,  but  certain  indi- 
viduals live  on,  and  become  successively  cotemporary  with 
the  second,  third,  and  even  with  the  fourth  ranks  of  popu- 
lation's advancing  hosts. 

Joanna  Baillie,  born  in  the  year  1762,  published  the 
first  volume  of  her  ' Plays  on  the  Passions'  in  1798,  trans- 
cending at  once,  by  many  degrees  of  splendour,  the  dra- 
matic fame  of  Hannah  More :  although  no  tragedy  ever 
written  by  Joanna  Baillie,  with  all  its  structural  skill,  in- 
tellectual wealth,  penetrating  insight,  original  power,  and 
beautiful  poetry,  attained  as  high  a  measure  of  theatrical 
success  as  Hannah  More's  *  Percy'  had  done.  Joanna 
Baillie  continued  to  publish  poetry  until  the  year  1836, 
and  did  not  die  until  February  23,  1851. 

In  1823,  Hannah  More,  for  the  second  time  in  the 
course  of  her  long  life,  saw  herself  surpassed  in  dramatic 
composition,  Mary  Hussell  Mitford,  born  in  1786,  having 
had  *  Julian,'  the  first  of  her  three  eminently  successful 
tragedies,  performed  in  London,  and  subsequently  pub- 
lished. This,  however,  was  chiefly  a  stage  triumph:  the 


554  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF   ENGLAND. 

skilful  construction  of  the  plot,  the  life-like  reality  of  the 
personages,  the  suitable  apportionment  of  sentiments  to 
characters,  the  natural  and  genial  beauty  of  occasional 
passages,  and  the  passionate  force  of  the  whole,  served 
alike  in  '  Julian/  in  *  The  Two  Foscari,'  and  in  '  Bienzi,' 
to  win  applause  and  to  secure  popularity,  notwithstanding 
large  quantities  of  unconscious  plagiarisms,  and  verses  so 
defective  in  metre  and  so  dissonant  in  rhythm,  that  the 
word  poetry  could  only  be  applied  to  them  in  courtesy. 
Mary  Kussell  Mitford  died  January  10,  1855. 

'The  Vespers  of  Palermo,'  and  the  other  tragedies  of 
Mrs.  Hemans,  are  worthy  as  mere  poems,  though  not  as 
dramas,  to  be  compared  with  the  ablest  of  Joanna  Baillie's. 

The  local  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  the  child- 
hood of  these  two  poetesses  were  similar  and  peculiar.  One 
was  born  nine-and-twenty  years  before  the  other,  and  died 
sixteen  years  after  her.  One  was  brought  up  in  Scotland, 
and  one  in  Wales :  both  were  of  ancient  lineage.  They 
never  met ;  and  until  the  bloom  of  youth  had  faded  from 
the  youngest,  and  the  characters  of  both  had  set,  they 
never  entered  into  correspondence.  Their  natural  disposi- 
tions and  talents  differed  essentially  :  one  was  a  geometri- 
cian, a  logician,  self-sustained  and  independent  both  in 
judgment  and  action :  the  other,  though  lively  and  spirited, 
might  be  taken  as  a  type  of  feminine  dependence. 

Both  were  richly  endowed  with  genius,  and  the  poetry 
of  both  was  of  that  highly  imaginative,  yet  experimental, 
kind  for  which  mountain  lands,  Celtic  traditions,  secluded 
and  frugal,  though  enlightened,  rural  homes  had  trained 
them.  To  institute  a  comparison  between  then-  lives,  cha- 
racters, and  intellectual  productions  does  not  fall  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  present  work.  Two  poetesses  superior 
to  them  Great  Britain  has  never  yet  produced.  If  a  third, 


LITEltAKY    WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  555 

within  the  century,  be  admitted  as  nearly  entitled  to  a  seat 
beside  them,  it  is  Mrs.  Tiglie,  who,  in  a  higher  sphere  of 
MK-iol  life,  possessed  also  the  advantage  of  passing  her 
childhood  amid  the  scenery  and  peasantry  of  a  Celtic  land. 

Without  degrading  Lady  Pembroke's  *  Astrophel '  from 
the  lofty  and  solitary  niche  it  is  entitled  to  occupy,  can- 
dour compels  the  confession  that,  as  Spenserian  verse,  that 
poem  is  rivalled  by  Mrs.  Tighe's  '  Psyche  ; '  and  that,  as 
a  monody,  it  is  surpassed,  in  the  expression  of  genuine 
sorrow,  and  the  power  of  evoking  sympathy,  by  many 
elegiac  verses  which  women  have  subsequently  written: 
those,  for  instance,  of  Lady  Hertford  on  the  death  of  Mrs. 
Kowe,  and  of  Mrs.  Hemans  on  the  death  of  Bishop 
Heber. 

Lady  Winchelsea's  didactic  pieces  are  rivalled  by  those 
of  Hannah  More  in  piquant  brilliancy,  knowledge  of  the 
world,  and  real  wisdom :  her  descriptions  of  rural  nature 
in  the  l  Night  Scene '  are  equalled  by  Mrs.  Hemans  in  her 
'  Spirit's  Keturn,'  where  the  intense  stillness  of  nature  is  so 
effectively  portrayed  as  to  beguile  the  reader's  mind  into  a 
state  of  preparation  for  the  supernatural  apparition. 

As  a  novelistic  love-story,  Miss  Seward's  l  Louisa '  has 
not  been  surpassed  by  any  poetess  included  in  this  volume, 
nor  by  any  one  who  has  subsequently  died.* 

The  sonnets  of  Charlotte  Smith  are  far  inferior  in  mental 
and  moral  beauty  to  those  of  Mrs.  Hemans.  A  parallel 
might  be  drawn  between  the  lives  and  characters  of  these 
two  eminent  women,  but  the  points  of  divergence  are  far 
more  striking.  Charlotte  Smith  possessed  that  breadth  of 
understanding,  that  facility  in  applying  her  attention  to  the 
exact  sciences,  and  that  practical  faculty  for  business, 

*  When  the  abo\e  line  was  penned,  the  world  had  not  lost  Mrs.  Bar- 
rett Browning. 


556  LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

which  were  deficient  in  Mrs.  Hemans ;  whose  benignity 
and  sweetness  increased  under  trials  which  turned  the 
other's  to  gall  and  verjuice. 

The  last-written  hymns  of  Mrs.  Hemans  are  not  inferior 
to  the  hymns  of  Mrs.  Barbauld,  though  different  in  kind : 
nor  are  they  less  suited  to  the  purposes  of  public  worship, 
in  their  earnest  and  quiet  intensity  of  petition  and  thanks- 
giving, than  those  calm  and  devout  recitals  which  occa- 
sionally solemnize  the  feelings  of  almost  all  the  Christian 
congregations  in  England,  and  owe  their  origin  to  the  con- 
secrated talents  of  Mrs.  Barbauld. 

Mrs.  Hemans  cherished  for  the  memory  of  Mrs.  Tighe  the 
attachment  of  conscious  resemblance.  Both  were  blessed 
•with  mothers  who  trained  them  for  excellence :  both  pos- 
sessed acute  sensibilities,  passionately  deep,  true,  and 
tender  affections — "  hearts  of  tendrils  :"  both  had  highly- 
cultivated  minds,  conversant  with  the  literature  of  many 
lands :  both  greatly  delighted  in  the  beauties  of  external 
nature,  in  music,  painting,  and  sculpture :  both  were  adepts 
in  harmonious  versification :  both  richly  endowed  with  a 
high  order  of  genius :  and  both  regulated  the  exercise  of 
their  fine  poetic  faculties  with  taste  of  the  purest  kind. 
Mrs.  Tighe  died  before  life's  summer  had  passed ;  Mrs. 
Hemans  died  when  its  autumn  had  just  begun. 

With  all  these  points  of  similarity,  there  existed,  never- 
theless, great  diversity  between  them,  in  the  outward  cir- 
cumstances of  their  respective  lives,  as  well  as  in  their 
literary  characters.  Mrs.  Tighe  languished  out  her  stricken 
life  in  luxurious  immunity  from  worldly  cares,  an  object  of 
almost  idolatrous  affection  to  all  those  whom  she  loved  the 
best,  and  soothed  to  the  last  by  the  fond  attentions  of  a 
mother  and  a  husband.  Mrs.  Hemans  J^ad  to  struggle 
seventeen  years  for  the  welfare  of  her  five  sons,  while  the 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  557 

husband  who  should  have  aided  her  was  far  away,  in 
alienation ;  and  at  last  her  guiding  and  protecting  mother 
died,  and  left  her  desolate. 

All  the  poetry  of  Mrs.  Tighe  was  either  allegorical  and 
elaborately  ornamented,  or  the  direct  utterance  of  personal 
feeling.  The  collected  works  of  Mrs.  Hemans  do  not 
furnish  throughout  the  seven  volumes  a  single  instance  of 
original  allegory.  She  entertained  a  settled  dislike  to  that 
kind  of  composition,  and  few  poets  who  have  written  so 
much  as  she  has  done  ever  used  so  seldom  similes,  meta- 
phors, or  any  formal  figures  of  speech.  Her  decorations 
always  formed  an  integral  part  of  her  fabric ;  and  her 
poems,  even  when  they  breathed  her  own  regrets  and  aspi- 
rations, never  assumed  a  tone  of  individual  complaint,  and 
invariably  expressed  or  indicated  something  beyond  the 
self-indulgence  of  a  melancholy  mood,  stimulating  either 
domestic,  social,  or  religious  feeling.  As  regards  the  com- 
parative ability  of  these  two  gifted  women,  the  '  Psyche  * 
alone  can  be  put  in  competition. 

None  of  the  minor  poems  of  Mrs.  Tighe  will  bear  com- 
parison with  those  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  because  their  tone  of 
anguish  is  not  sufficiently  mitigated  by  lenient  accessories 
to  reduce  them  to  the  proper  condition  of  works  of  art,  and 
render  them  capable  of  imparting  unmixed  pleasure. 

Inferior  to  the  *  Psyche '  in  gorgeousness,  splendour,  and 
inventive  ingenuity,  equal  to  that  poem  in  force  of  intel- 
lect, elegance  of  language,  and  melody  of  verse,  « The 
Forest  Sanctuary '  far  excels  it  in  elevation  of  sentiment, 
human  interest,  and  real  pathos,  and  consequently  possesses 
wider  and  stronger  claims  on  the  world's  remembrance. 

The  mournful  announcement  that — 

" Bought  alone  by  gifts  beyond  all  price. 

The  trusting  heart's  repose,  I  ho  i>;tni«li.»r 


558         LITERARY  WOMEN  OF  ENGLAND. 

Of  home  with  all  its  loves,  doth  fate  allow 
The  crown  of  glory  unto  woman's  brow"  * — 

has  happily  been  disproved  by  many  notable  examples  of 
filial,  conjugal,  and  maternal  happiness.  Each  severally 
blessed  with  the  threefold  treasure  of  such  home  affec- 
tions were  Margaret  Eoper,  Lady  Burleigh,  Lady  Bacon, 
Lucy  Hutchinson,  Lady  Fanshawe,  Catherine  Cockburn, 
and  Anne  Grant. 

It  may  safely  be  asserted  that  the  exercise  of  extraordi- 
nary ability  never  involves  the  sacrifice  of  peace  of  mind 
and  of  domestic  comfort,  unless,  stimulated  by  worldly  am- 
bition, and  breaking  the  boundaries  of  judgment,  the  pro- 
pensity assumes  the  unnatural  aspect  of  an  ill-regulated 
and  monopolising  passion. 

The  owners  of  great  talents  have,  almost  invariably, 
strong  wills ;  just  as  a  bird's  strength  of  pinion  is  propor- 
tioned to  its  proper  flight.  If  that  strong  will  be  guided 
by  right' principles,  the  balance  of  the  character  will  be 
preserved,  and  life,  instead  of  being  made  miserable  by 
superior  sensibilities  and  intellectual  endowments,  must 
and  will  be  cheered  and  blessed  by  them. 

Among  the  readers  of  the  foregoing  pages  may  possibly 
be  some  female  aspirants  to  "  frame  excelling  things,"  and 
to  win  "  sublime  rewards."  To  them  it  is  hoped  that  these 
brief  biographies  of  literary  Englishwomen  may  prove 
better  incentives  than  the  trophies  of  Miltiades  did  to 
Themistocles ;  urging  them,  not  merely  to  emulate  their 
precursors'  fame,  but  to  avoid  their  errors,  and  to  follow 
their  example  in  the  best  and  noblest  things. 

One]  lesson  such  aspirants  ought  more  especially  to  re- 
iterate and  imprint  upon  themselves — that  no  talent  with 
which  a  favoured  individual  may  be  gifted;  no  capacity 

*  '  Joan  of  Arc  in  Rheims,'  by  Mrs.  Hemans. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND.  559 

for  knowledge ;  no  aptitude  for  artistic  accomplishments ; 
no  taste,  however  discriminating  ;  no  genius,  however  fine 
and  powerful ;  can  constitute  an  admissible  plea  for  the 
neglect  of  even  the  smallest  act  of  domestic  duty :  that 
the  claims  of  a  parent  or  a  brother,  of  a  husband,  a  child, 
or  a  household,  not  merely  in  the  extraordinary  exigencies 
of  sickness  or  sorrow,  but  in  the  everyday  occurrences  of 
life,  must  take  habitual  and  unhesitating  precedence  of  all 
intellectual  pursuits. 

Whatever  the  natural  inclinations  may  be,  in  a  well- 
regulated  character  the  desire  for  self-improvement  will 
steadily  maintain  its  ascendency,  by  the  regulation  of  the 
moral  feelings  and  the  sedulous  culture  of  the  intellectual 
powers.  A  resolute  will,  guided  by  enlightened  reason  and 
conscience,  cannot  fail  correctly  to  prescribe  the  use  of 
every  talent.  That  very  gift  of  mental  brilliancy  or 
power  which  the  ignorant  or  self-indulgent  would  plead  as 
a  cause  of  exemption  from  the  trivialities  of  practical 
economy  or  household  employments,  furnishes,  indeed,  a 
strong  argument  for  diligently  applying  to  them ;  because 
the  gem  of  intrinsic  worth  will  have  many  facets  advan- 
tageously cut  by  that  best  of  all  lapidaries  actual  expe- 
rience ;  and  the  power  which  is  ultimately  to  propel  new 
thoughts,  to  construct  new  combinations,  and  to  judge 
aright  of  widely  collected  instances,  will  gain  weight  and 
acceleration  in  being  put  to  various  uses,  while  the  whole 
character  expands,  invigorated  and  ennobled  by  self-denial 
and  self-conquest,  attains  a  completeness  it  would  other- 
wise have  wanted,  and  usefulness  beyond  the  most  san- 
guine dreams  of  youth. 

It  is  neither  the  wish  nor  intention  of  the  writer  to 
assume  a  didactic  air ;  but  it  may.  perhaps,  be  as  well,  in  an 
age  when  listless  lassitude  and  galvanic  restlessness  divide 


560  LITERARY   WOMEN    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  days  of  too  many  young  Englishwomen,  to  point  out 
the  effect  of  a  well-chosen  pursuit,  followed  up  in  leisure 
hours,  in  promoting  a  strong  and  healthful  interest  in  daily 
life,  and  a  diligent  application  to  its  duties.  The  love  of 
ease  and  idleness  among  the  labouring  classes  is  justly 
reckoned  one  of  the  most  prolific  sources  of  crime  ;  and 
indolence  among  the  wealthy,  besides  involving  in  itself 
both  waste  of  life  and  waste  of  talents,  is  likewise  a  most 
seductive  incentive  to  various  forms  of  sin.  Every  one 
possesses  some  ability — literary,  artistic,  mechanical,  house- 
wifely, or  horticultural — which,  used  as  a  favourite  recrea- 
tion, may  keep  the  thoughts  pleasantly  employed,  quicken 
the  languid  stream  of  time,  like  a  breeze  setting  in  to 
accompany  its  course,  and  help  it  to  speed  cheerfully  along 
independent  of  frivolous  and  mischievous  contrivances. 

The  Lives,  Works,  and  Deaths  briefly  recorded  in  these 
pages  will  speak  for  themselves  to  earnest  minds,  and 
teach  yet  higher  lessons. 

In  order  to  leave  with  the  reader  a  favourable  impres- 
sion of  the  Literary  Women  of  England,  the  following 
poem  has  been  reserved  for  this  place. 


DESPONDENCY  AND  ASPIRATION.* 
By  Mrs.  HEMANS. 

My  soul  was  mantled  with  dark  shadows,  bom 

Of  lonely  fear,  disquieted  in  vain ; 
Its  phantoms  hung  around  the  star  of  morn, 

A  cloud-like  weeping  train  : 

Through  the  long  day  they  dimmed  the  autumn  gold 
On  all  the  glistening  leaves,  and  wildly  rolled, 
When  the  last  farewell  flush  of  light  was  glowing 

Across  the  sunset  sky ; 
O'er  its  rich  isles  of  vaporous  glory  throwing 

One  melancholy  dye. 


*  'Works,'  vol.  vii.  p.  27G. 


LITERARY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND.  501 

And  when  the  solemn  night 

Game  rushing  with  her  might 
Of  stormy  oracles  from  caves  unknown, 

Then,  with  each  fitful  blast 

Prophetic  murmurs  passed, 
Wakening  or  answering  some  deep  sibyl-tone 
Far  buried  in  my  breast,  yet  prompt  to  rise 
With  every  gusty  wail  that  o'er  the  wind-harp  flies. 

Fold,  fold  thy  wings,  they  cried,  and  strive  no  more ; 

Faint  spirit,  strive  no  more  !  for  thee  too  strong 

Are  outward  ill  and  wrong, 
And  inward  wasting  fires.     Thou  canst  not  soar 

Free  on  a  starry  way 

Beyond  their  blighting  sway, 
At  Heaven's  high  gate  serenely  to  adore  ! 
How  shouldst  thou  hope  earth's  fetters  to  unbind, 
Oh,  passionate  yet  weak!  oh,  trembler  to  the  wind! 

Never  shall  aught  but  broken  music  flow 
From  joy  of  thine,  deep  love,  or  tearful  woe ; 
Such  homeless  notes  as  through  the  forest  sigh, 

From  the  reed's  hollow  shaken 

When  sudden  breezes  waken 
Their  vague  wild  symphony. 
No  power  is  theirs  and  no  abiding  place 
In  human  hearts  ;  their  sweetness  leaves  no  trace  ; 

Born  only  so  to  die ! 

Never  shall  aught  but  perfume  faint  and  vain, 

On  the  fleet  pinion  of  the  changeful  hour, 
From  thy  bruised  life  again 

A  moment's  essence  breathe  ; 
Thy  life,  whose  trampled  flower 

Into  the  blessed  wreath 
Of  household  charities  no  longer  bound, 
Lies  pale  and  withering  on  the  barren  ground. 

So  fade,  fade  on !     Thy  gift  of  love  shall  cling 

A  coiling  sadness  round  thy  heart  and  brain — 
A  silent,  fruitless,  yet  undying  thing, 

All  sensitive  to  pain ! 

And  still  the  shadow  of  vain  dreams  shall  fall 
O'er  thy  mind's  world,  a  daily  darkening  pall. 
Fold,  then,  thy  wounded  wing,  and  sink  subdued 
In  cold  and  unrepining  quietude ! 

Then  my  soul  yielded  :  spells  of  numbing  breath 

Crept  o'er  it,  heavy  with  a  dew  of  death  : 

Its  powers,  like  leaves,  before  the  night-rain  closing  ; 

And  as  by  conflict  of  wild  sea-waves  tossed 

On  the  chill  bosom  of  some  desert  coast, 

Mutely  and  hopelessly,  I  lay  reposing. 

2  o 


562  LITEBABY   WOMEN   OF    ENGLAND. 

When  silently  it  seemed 

As  if  a  soft  mist  gleamed 
Before  my  passive  sight,  and,  slowly  curling, 

To  many  a  shape  and  hue 

Of  visioned  beauty  grew, 
Like  a  wrought  banner,  fold  by  fold  unfurling. 

Oh !  the  rich  scenes  that  o'er  mine  inward  eye 

Unrolling  then  swept  by 

With  dreamy  motion !     Silvery  seas  were  there, 
Lit  by  large  dazzling  stars,  and  arched  by  skies 
Of  southern  midnight's  most  transparent  dyes ; 
And  gemmed  with  many  an  island  wildly  fair, 
Which  floated  past  me  into  orient  day, 
Still  gathering  lustre  on  the  illumined  way, 
Till  its  high  groves  of  wondrous  flowering  trees 
Coloured  the  silvery  seas. 

And  then  a  glorious  mountain-chain  uprose, 

Height  above  spiry  height : 
A  soaring  solitude  of  woods  and  snows, 

All  steeped  in  golden  light. 
While  as  it  passed,  those  regal  peaks  unveiling, 

I  heard,  methought,  a  waving  of  dread  wings 
And  mighty  sounds,  as  if  the  vision  hailing 

From  lyres  that  quivered  through  ten  thousand  strings 
Or  as  if  waters,  forth  to  music  leaping, 

From  many  a  cave,  the  alpine  echo's  hall, 
On  their  bold  way  victoriously  were  sweeping, 

Linked  in  majestic  anthems  :  while  through  all 

That  billowy  swell  and  fall, 
Voices,  like  ringing  crystal,  rilled  the  air 
With  inarticulate  melody  that  stirred 
My  being's  core ;  then  moulding  into  word 
Their  piercing  sweetness,  bade  me  rise  and  bear 
In  that  great  choral  strain  my  trembling  part, 
Of  tones  by  love  and  faith  struck  from  a  human  heart. 

Keturn  no  more,  vain  bodings  of  the  night ! 

A  happier  oracle  within  my  soul 
Hath  swelled  to  power  ;  a  clear,  unwavering  light 

Mounts  through  the  battling  clouds  that  round  me  roll ; 

And  to  a  new  control 
Nature's  full  harp  gives  forth  rejoicing  tones, 

Wherein  my  glad  sense  owns 
The  accordant  rush  of  elemental  sound 
To  one  consummate  harmony  profound, 

One  grand  Creation-Hymn, 

Whose  notes  the  Seraphim 
Lift  to  the  glorious  height  of  music  winged  and  crowned. 


1.1TKHAKY    WOMEN  OF   ENGLAND. 

Shall  not  these  notes  find  echos  in  my  lyre, 

Faithful  though  faint  ?    Shall  not  my  spirit's  ftre. 

If  slowly,  yet  unswervingly  ascend 

Now  to  its  fount  nnd  end  ? 

Shall  not  my  earthly  love,  all  purified, 

Shine  forth  a  heavenward  guide, 

An  angel  of  bright  power,  and  strongly  bear 

My  being  upward  into  holier  air, 

Where  fiery  passion-clouds  have  no  abode, 

And  the  sky's  temple-arch  o'erflows  with  God  ? 

The  radiant  hope  new  born 

Expands  like  rising  morn 

In  my  life's  life ;  and  as  a  ripening  rose 

The  crimson  shadow  of  its  glory  throws 

More  vivid,  hour  by  hour,  on  some  pure  stream, 

So  from  that  hope  are  spreading 

Rich  hues,  o'er  nature  shedding 
Each  day  a  clearer,  spiritual  gleam. 

Let  not  those  rays  fade  from  me,  once  enjoyed, 

Father  of  spirits !  let  them  not  depart, 
Leaving  the  chilled  earth,  without  form  and  void, 

Darkened  by  mine  own  heart ! 
Lift,  aid,  sustain  me !    Thou,  by  whom  alone 

All  lovely  gifts  and  pure 

In  the  soul's  grasp  endure  ; 
Thou,  to  the  steps  of  whose  eternal  throne 
All  knowledge  flows,  a  sea  for  evermore 
Breaking  its  crested  waves  on  that  sole  shore, 
Oh,  consecrate  my  life  !  that  I  may  sing 
Of  Thee  with  joy  that  hath  a  living  spring 
In  a  full  heart  of  music !    Let  my  lays 
Through  the  resounding  mountains  waft  Thy  praise, 
And  with  that  theme  the  wood's  green  cloisters  fill 
And  make  their  quivering,  leafy  dimness  thrill 
To  the  rich  breeze  of  song !     Oh,  let  me  wake 
The  deep  religion  which  hath  dwelt  from  yore 
Silently  brooding  by  lone  cliff  and  lake, 

And  wildest  river  shore ! 
And  let  me  summon  all  the  voices  dwelling 
Where  eagles  build,  and  caverned  rills  are  welling, 
And  where  the  cataract's  organ-peal  is  swelling, 

In  that  one  spirit  gathered  to  adore  ! 

Forgive,  oh,  Father !  if  presumptuous  thought 

Too  daringly  in  aspiration  rise ! 
Let  not  Thy  child  all  vainly  have  been  taught 

By  weakness,  and  by  wanderings,  and  by  sighs 

2  o  2 


564  LITERAKY   WOMEN   OF   ENGLAND. 

Of  sad  confession !    Lowly  be  my  heart, 

And  on  its  penitential  altar  spread 
The  offerings,  worthless  till  Thy  grace  impart 

The  fire  from  Heaven,  whose  touch  alone  can  shed 
Life,  radiance,  virtue !  let  that  vital  spark 
Pierce  my  whole  being,  wildered  else  and  dark ! 

Thine  are  all  holy  things, — oh,  make  me  Thine  ! 
So  shall  I,  too,  be  pure,  a  living  shrine 
Unto  that  Spirit  which  goes  forth  from  Thee 

Strong  and  divinely  free, 
Bearing  Thy  gifts  of  wisdom  on  its  flight, 

And  brooding  o'er  them  with  a  dove-like  wing, 
Till  thought,  word,  song,  to  Thee  in  worship  spring, 
Immortally  endowed  for  liberty  and  light." 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE   END. 


LONDON  :  FEINTED  BT  W.  CLOWBS  AND  SONS,  STAMFORD  STREET, 
AND  CHARING  CROSS. 


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